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Tom MacSweeney
The Old Head of Kinsale Napoleonic Tower and Memorial Garden in the foreground
The community group at the renowned South Coast landmark, the Old Head of Kinsale, plans to build a major, new Lusitania Museum to replace the present small museum at the site, where they have also constructed a memorial garden. The…
An under 25 team racing in a RStGYC J80 keelboat on Dublin Bay
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…
Younger sailors have been featuring more in South Coast racing including George Radley Jnr and crew on Creamy Beam, a vintage Sadler 25, competing in the 2020 Cobh to Blackrock Race
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…
Golden Globe Irish racer Gregor McGuckin in rough conditions in the Southern Ocean before his dismasting
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…
Water Safety Ireland CEO John Leech
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…
RCYC Admiral Colin Morehead, an active member of that club for over 45 years
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…
Kevin Flannery of Dingle
"Someone needs to bang the table and bang heads together. Do State agencies talk to each other?" That blunt statement caused me to think a lot this week when I am still disappointed at official attitudes towards the marine sector.…
Boats are Excluded From State COVID Support Because They are Mobile
It seems logical, boats move, but that is their business. The Department of Finance takes a different view. It has told boat operators that this mobility excludes them from being given the supports offered to businesses which are landbound –…
Castletownbere in West Cork
What would our island nation be like if we did not have thriving coastal communities? How much awareness is there amongst government politicians and the mandarins of the civil service that there is a considerable level of fear and concern…
Irish Sailing President David O'Brien
Sailing should be marketed in the widest way possible to the public to increase participation. Clubs and the national association can do this together to emphasise its accessibility, the President of Irish Sailing, the national association, has told Afloat. In…
Dun Laoghaire Harbour on Dublin Bay is Ireland's largest boating centre with capacity for over 800 boats in the town marina
The "sleeping giant" of the marine sector is how the marine tourism and leisure sector has been described. It may well be, despite how hard the Covid pandemic has hit it this year. The last socio-economic study of "Ireland's Ocean…
Jim O'Donoghue - Linking the 'god of the Sea' Neptune, Slua Muiri and the American Navy to Basketball
Coincidence is amazing, even if it's hard to believe. This week I'm inclined to credibility after Foreign Affairs, and Defence Minister Simon Coveney espoused the importance of the Naval Reserve when announcing the Government decision to establish a Commission "to…
A photo provided by MBSC member John Hegarty of the race hut at Monkstown circa 1922
Despite the impact of the pandemic Monkstown Bay Sailing Club in Cork Harbour has had a resurgence of numbers in dinghy league racing. So outgoing Commodore Ciaran McSweeney told club members as he completed his two-year term in office. New…
Kowloon Bridge: Her cargo of 160,000 tonnes of iron ore pellets, said to have been insured for stg£2.7m., still lies on the seabed.
The Beacon at Baltimore can be a miserable place. It's nice to see on a good Summer's day sailing by and bound for the harbour entrance, but it's different in nasty weather. That's what I had remembered this past week…
Irish Sailing's Regional Development Officer, Gail MacAllister.
The pandemic could provide an opportunity for sailing. That is an interesting view and comes from Irish Sailing's Regional Development Officer, Gail MacAllister.  "There is such a massive interest in being outdoors because of the imposition of the Covid restrictions,…
Pearse Flynn of Green Rebel Marine - listen to him on the podcast below
The photomontage published in Afloat a week ago of 60 'supersize' wind turbines planned for Dublin Bay should raise substantial debate about the impact of offshore wind farms on Irish waters and the activities in them – sailing, leisure marine,…

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