On June 14th, in the Lough Ree Yacht Club, Pat McManus and Les Saunders gave their latest presentations to Athlone IWAI members and a number of guests, who asked to attend the meeting. Les started with an overview of the CSIG and continued with a walk through of the charts and overlays as they are today. Pat showed his latest chart with high definition and detail of the area around Hare Island, the result of over 240 hours of surveying. This chart will be of particular interest to anglers and divers, as well as general users of the charts.
There was great interest from the audience and lively discussions took place after the presentation and indeed continued in the bar of the Lough Ree Yacht Club until the small hours. However, the marvellous surprise that night, was the commitment by Athlone IWAI to provide the CSIG with a cheque for €3,500 to help in funding the group. The CSIG is very grateful to Athlone members for this contribution, which will enable us to purchase new software and equipment to continue our research.
There were many nice comments on the night, but the one that had the most impact was when the CSIG was described as “continuing the efforts that were started by Harry Rice, albeit with more modern equipment”, and “if he was alive today, he would be a leading light in the group”.
The next step is to present to the IWAI Executive with our proposal for matching funds.