Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

“Voyagers from the grave” read the headline in a Melbourne newspaper, The Advocate, in 1877, and the report was about three Galway men who had by then become known as “the shaughrauns”. The previous November of 1876, four men, had…

There will be more boats on the water in the season ahead, crewed by young sailors supported by the Irish Cruiser Racing Association's Under 25 programme which has been so successful that ICRA is now working with the national sailing…

When the "low black schooner" America won what was to become an historic race around the Isle of Wight on Friday 22nd August 1851 from a small fleet of varied English yachts, thereby winning a silver ewer which was eventually…

Lee Early, deputy coxswain of the RNLI’s Arranmore lifeboat in Donegal lost his life in 2019, but his name is one of 10,000 which will be inscribed on the hull of the new Shannon class lifeboat bound for Clifden, Co…

More young sailors are interested in racing offshore, an encouraging trend that should be fostered. It can help to bridge the problems that have been encountered in sailing where younger sailors have been lost to the sport in bridging the…

The Irish Cruising Club has been producing a printed Annual collating its members doings afloat and ashore through logs and narratives for ninety years now. And while these days this substantial collection is in circulation before Christmas as a matter…

Bow to bow, they stretch five kilometres – that's how the Rolex Fastnet yacht race organisers have welcomed the record entry for this summer’s race, which will have a new finish in Cherbourg, France. Some ten Irish entries are among…

The Figaro Solo was arguably the peak in sailing competition – both inshore and offshore – in Europe during 2020. In a truncated and contorted season, somehow the crème de la creme of international solo sailing were guided into a…

Two and a half years after Dublin solo sailor Gregor McGuckin returned from the Golden Globe Race, the strong public interest in Gregor's story led me to Malahide Marina Boatyard in County Dublin for this week's podcast. As regular Afloat…

Some 30 per cent of researchers worldwide are female, according to UNESCO which marks International Day of Women and Girls in Science this week About 35 per cent of all students in STEM-related fields – that’s science, technology, engineering and…

In these long-lived times, a Silver Jubilee is not what it used to be in an era when Golden Jubilees, Centenaries, Tricentenaries and whatever you're having yourself are cascading around us in an almost continuous nostalgia-fest. Nevertheless the healthy Quarter…

The Government’s ambitious plans for renewable energy off the Atlantic coast should involve communities as active stakeholders and not just recipients of compensation, an island energy co-op has said. Dara Ó Maoildhia, chairman of Comharchumann Fuinneamh Oileáin Árann, the Aran…

The Chief Executive of the State agency, Water Safety Ireland, has made an appeal to all fishermen to take a "risk-based approach" to safety throughout the year to reduce tragedies which coastal communities have endured. John Leech says that the…

Dublin and its Port. The City and the Sea. The Culture and the Commerce. The Buzz and the Business. The sense of real working and creative life, with the romance of the ocean and the hint of salty far horizons,…

“We’ll always give our best, treat every incident as if it is one of our own.... and try our utmost to get a missing family member back to their loved one.....” The words of Lieut Stephen Stack, head of the…

It is time to look at renewing club memberships. With lockdown continuing and no certainty about when the country will "re-open", renewals are easy to forget. But clubs need them and many saw a reduction and slowness in paying those…