Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

The 170-year-old America’s Cup is global sailing’s Sacred Mystery. To be most true to itself, it should be raced in boats - or more accurately sailing machines - that are about as different as possible from the craft used by…

While everyone in Irish sailing and beyond shares in the joy of seeing Finn Lynch emerge so spectacularly from a performance drought to take Silver at this week’s Laser Worlds in Barcelona, it is really only those who have fully…

John O’Mahony, Chairman of the first representative association for Coast Guard volunteers, says that “Personnel issues are the worst failing in the Coast Guard. It’s like a blind spot.” He was Deputy Officer-in-Charge of the Toe Head Unit, originally the…

There’s rarely a weekend when there isn’t some activity in and around Galway’s Claddagh basin. Earlier last month, the Galway Hooker Sailing Club and Port of Galway Sea Scouts launched the 96-year old gleoiteog, Loveen, which was refurbished during the…

Would Tom Kneen's JPK 11.80 Sunrise have still won the Rolex Fastnet Race 2021 if it had been sailed on the old course, with Plymouth rather than Cherbourg as the finish? Imponderable it may be, but it's a question of…

More clubs around the country are developing cruiser racing opportunities for young sailors. It is, increasingly, being seen as vital to ensure that clubs themselves have a future. The biggest loss to sailing has been when young sailors leave dinghies…

October 2021 has been kind to Irish sailing in brightening our spirits, letting our crews be active with more sunshine than you'd expect, and helping to banish any thoughts of the dodgy pandemic situation ashore. Even though the Bank Holiday…

A century ago, a ship called The Quest was at sea between Lisbon and Madeira on what was to be Ernest Shackleton’s final expedition. This coming January, the centenary of the adventurer’s death in Antarctica will be marked with a…

Disappointment is always hard to take, but Peter Lawless is determined, even though he has, this time, failed in his ambition to become the first Irishman to sail around the world non-stop. The Kerry solo sailor left Kilrush Marina in…

According to one usually reliable line of information, yesterday was to be the day in Auckland when Team New Zealand and the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, as Trustees and Holders of the America's Cup, were due to confirm the…

In Ireland, we're living through the Decade of Centenaries in terms of marking conflict-laden historical events and major national happenings ashore. So it says everything about the blissful sense of having a world of our own in sailing that in…

Monkstown Bay Sailing Club is based in the inner part of Cork Harbour and is buzzing with the start of its October League and, says Club Commodore, Sandy Rimmington, a revival of the 5O5 fleet and a plan to expand…

What weighs almost five kilos and ranges in subjects from archaeology to zoology, with Atlantic tsunamis, Viking raids and the Irish coast’s role in cinema in between? The first Coastal Atlas of Ireland is ambitious and multidisciplinary. Between its 893…

Coming as it does from David Tasker - an Afloat.ie reader from the Isle of Wight - a typically Autumnal query received a day or two ago from this new owner of an interesting and much-loved vintage boat is one…

It was discussed in the Seanad on Wednesday the fifth of March in 2003….. Senator Joe O'Toole, a teacher by profession was an Independent Senator, served as General Secretary of the National Teachers Organisation and President of the Congress of…

We've been waiting a year to use this header photo which – owing to a certain confusion in the filing of thousands of photographic negs and images – has had to be scanned from the November 1970 issue of Irish…