Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

The opening race of the 2024 summer sailing season at Schull Harbour Sailing Club in West Cork was staged on Saturday in near-idyllic weather as the mixed cruiser fleet competed for the Rossbrin Boatyard Trophy. After starting in the inner…

While a strong solar storm is producing spectacular displays of Northern lights over Ireland, large numbers of basking sharks have been sighted in waters off the south and south-west coasts. “We have seen 60, 70, and even 80 basking sharks…

Donald MacQueen Street Jnr of Glandore and the Caribbean and formerly New York has gone from among us after an extraordinary life of nearly 94 years, in which he experienced a sometimes picaresque existence. Throughout it, he significantly encouraged, instructed,…

Members of the Kinsale Yacht Club Cruising Group had a wonderful start to the cruising season with a BBQ and overnight stay at the Naval Services Yacht Squadron in Haulbowline Naval Base in Cork Harbour. The event was organised by…

RNLI coxswain Mark Gannon with West Cork’s Courtmacsherry lifeboat was on a call out in December 1981 when he and his crew heard over the radio about the Penlee lifeboat disaster - when an entire lifeboat crew was lost off…

Afloat.ie regrets to record the death of Don Street of Glandore in his 94th year. For many years a Caribbean enthusiast, writing a series of successful pioneering pilot books for the area, he was also a renowned authority on ocean…

Look for a surefire cure for seasickness, and no better person to ask than someone who worked on a lightship off the Irish coast. Lightship duty was both tough and boring, highly dangerous during wartime, and particularly hard on the…

Cork County Council has confirmed funding for a foreshore license, design and site investigation for Keelbeg Pier in Union Hall. The Council and Union Hall pier users met with Marine Minister Charlie McConalogue to discuss the development of the old…

Schull Harbour Hotel has been announced as the new title sponsor for the Calves Week 2024 Regatta in West Cork. This partnership will last for the next three years and will bring a great racing and onshore festivities experience to…

Baltimore Sailing Club’s Joseph Griffiths will be joining the two Northern Ireland youth sailors selected for the Griffin Project 2024. As previously reported on Afloat.ie, the Griffin Project is a Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) initiatve which gives young sailors…

Low tide was a little too low for one Kinsale yacht which listed over the adjacent quay on Wednesday afternoon (10 April). As CorkBeo reports, a section of Pier Road in the West Cork town was closed to traffic after…

The organisation, which has launched two hundred small sailing boats to cross the Atlantic Ocean, fostering interest in the sea and developing cultural links amongst nations, intends to develop the project further following a particularly positive response from a coastal…

For ILCA sailors Easter always means the Munster Championships in Baltimore Sailing Club in West Cork. Despite the early Easter this year the Munster Championships lived up to all expectations, with nearly a hundred boats travelling from around the country,…

In an Easter sea rescue operation, the Castletownbere RNLI lifeboat 'Annette Hutton' was launched to assist a local fishing vessel that had lost its ability to manoeuvre on the north side of Sheep's Head. The lifeboat received an alert at…

On Sunday, March 23rd, Bantry Bay Sailing Club launched the Irish Sailing fleet of Fireflies at 9:10 a.m. They had collected the boats from Malahide and Cork for the Munster Provincial Schools Team Racing Event. It was a drizzly morning…

The hazards of lost or discarded fishing gear has been highlighted in a Marine Casualty Investigation Board (MCIB) report into the loss of a yacht off Baltimore, Co Cork, last June. All five on board were rescued, after their yacht,…