Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Tributes have been paid to Badóirí an Cladaigh for illuminating their fleet of Galway hookers for the St Patrick's Day festival. Galway-based photographer Pat Cantwell captured images of the fleet of vessels on the Claddagh basin in Galway city. The…

Silvery Light Sailing is Northern Ireland’s only Maritime Heritage Community Boatworks and Sail Training Charity and it has just been awarded a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant of £244,975 for the acquisition of the 1892-built Heritage Tall Ship Leader and…

One of Galway’s fleet of traditional craft has been lit in Ukrainian national colours in support of the people of Ukraine The Naomh Cronán is decked out in yellow and blue on Galway’s Claddagh basin each evening after sunset. The…

Royal Cork's Paris Boat Show announcement last December that there is to be a dedicated Classics Class at Volvo Cork Week has been receiving a steady uptake of entries. As Afloat reported earlier, a former famous Morning Cloud yacht from the…

Maritime historian Cormac Lowth will present the final talk in The National Maritime Museum's winter series when he discusses the Sailing Trawlers of Ringsend on Thursday, 24th March at 7.30 pm. For one hundred years, from 1818 until 1919, there was a…

Currachs take to the water in Barcelona, Spain this Sunday to mark Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations. The 11th annual Mediterranean Currach regatta is a festival of Irish heritage and culture, run by the Iomramh Cultural Association and the Irish in…

Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance has been located in Antarctica’s Weddell Sea just 106 years after it was crushed in ice. The wreck of the ship has been filmed by the Endurance 22 expedition at a depth of 3009 metres (9868…

The search for the remains of Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic-exploring achieved success today with ghostly images of the remarkably well-preserved vessel being sent to the search expedition. Afloat has more on the story here

It’s good news that a proper Classics Division is going to be included in Volvo Cork Week in July, and it’s even better news that one of the first to step up to the plate is Opposition, the gold standard…

The boating community and those who treasured the maritime heritage of County Fermanagh’s Lough Erne learned with shock last weekend of the sudden death of Fred Ternan. Fred was a true son of Fermanagh. He was born on Inniscoonra Island…

A lecture 'The Sailing Trawlers of Ringsend' is to be held in the National Maritime Museum of Ireland, Dun Laoghaire. The lecture is to take place on Thursday, March 24th (19:30 – 21:00). Cormac Lowth will explore the Ringsend Trawlers…

In recent years we’ve become accustomed to the handsome blue mini-cruise-liner St Bridget plying her day-excursion trade along the coasts around Dublin Bay between Dublin Port, Howth and Dun Laoghaire. She’s now a welcome and integral part of the summer…

A fund-raising campaign is underway to save and restore a former UK Royal Navy minesweeper that lies partially submerged in Birkenhead Dock on Merseyside. HMS Bronington which belonged to the 'Ton' class of minesweepers, where intended to meet the threat…

Kilrush may be best known internationally these days as the place where the Dublin Bay 21 fleet - originally from 1902 - is being re-born through the developing skills of the Steve Morris-led boat-building team in the south Clare harbour…

In the latest Dublin Bay Old Gaffers Zoom talk Mark Sweetman will recount his search for a nesting dinghy design to suit his needs and how he ended up building one himself. For a long time, Mark wanted a hard tender…

There’s a great buzz of woodworking activity in the Belleek Men’s Shed and on West Island in County Fermanagh. But this is no ordinary woodworking – this is the building of traditional Lough Erne Cots. The Cot was originally a…