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Colonel Blair Mayne SAS (and later of Royal Ulster YC) with his best mate, getting into battle mood in the North African desert during World War II of 1939-45. Anyone who gets along well with a Jack Russell terrier, while looking so very like superstar actor Liam Neeson before Neeson was born, must have had some redeeming features - even if he was a danger to all when partying in a new kitchen
County Clare is a place unto itself and a magic if challenging coastline for boats, bounded as it is by the Atlantic to the west, Galway Bay to the north, Galway County to the northeast, Lough Derg and the Shannon…
Ann Kirwan at the helm of a Ruffian 23 in West Cork
Irish international offshore sailor Joan Mulloy has recently completed a ten-day trip from Antigua to Portugal in a Mod 70 trimaran as part of the Famous project led by Dee Cafarri and Alexia Barrier, which aims to break the record…
Good old reliables. After a successful season in Ireland in 2023, the First 50 Checkmate XX (Dave Cullen & Nigel Biggs HYC) is Entry No 1 for the three day Howth Wave Regatta, starting Friday May 24th
When it was announced that the three-day Howth Wave Regatta 2024 would be in the last full May weekend of Friday 24th to Sunday 26th, there was a certain thoughtful sucking of the molars among the waterfront pundits. For this…
Mark Gannon, coxswain with RNLI Courtmacsherry
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…
Classic Dun Laoghaire Saturday scene of the late 1940s/early 1950s. John B Kearney’s own-designed own-built classic 10-ton yawl Mavis of 1925-vintage is poised to race as soon as the breeze fills in, with Skipper Kearney in the companionway, and his housekeeper/PA Miss Douglas - aka Samson or John Dory – determinedly in place to do the steering
The National Yacht Club, handsomely sited in the southeast corner of Dun Laoghaire Harbour, was certainly looking its part as the current MG Motor “Sailing Cub of the Year” last Saturday morning. The sun shone, and in the crisp onshore…
Galley Head Lightkeeper Gerald Butler with Yvonne Shields Chief Executive of Commissioner of Irish Lights with Cillian Phelan (8 yrs) Sarah Phelan (6 yrs) and Sophie Costello (8 yrs)
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…
The Magic Moment. The Dubois 40 Irish Independent, with Tim Goodbody (RIYC) as lead helm, rounds the Fastnet Rock on the way to the overall win in 1987
The Royal Irish Yacht Club of Dun Laoghaire is so far the only club in Ireland which has indicated to Denis Byrne, Commodore of the governing Irish Cruiser-Racer Association and Vice Admiral of the Royal Cork YC, that it is…
The spirit of Dublin Bay. Senior Skipper Tim Goodbody helming his very successful family-owned J/109 White Mischief
There’s something special about a large organisation which is so attuned to the needs of the many services it quietly provides that it can - naturally and confidently and without fuss - move into action each year in a distinctly…
What’s not to like? The RORC’s new Griffin Project features the Jeanneau Sun Fast 30 OD. Very zippy - yet ultimately recyclable - she is light years away from the first club-owned Griffin, a 44ft gaff sloop of 1938 origins
With the RORC’s new Griffin Project for training young sailors recently launched in a blaze of publicity, there have been the usual demands that something similar should be delivered for Ireland. But Sailing on Saturday would suggest that, over the…
Oceans of Hope UK founder Robert Munns (on right in red shirt).jpg
When duty marina manager Robert Munns had a chance meeting with a Danish doctor on a pontoon at Brighton some years ago, it changed his life. Munns had been diagnosed by multiple sclerosis (MS) some time before, and the Dane…
The USA project team meet Barryroe pupils to describe their work that sets small sailing boats out across the Atlantic Ocean
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…
The Italian Class40 Alla Grande Pirelli in the 2023 Normandy Channel Race, which took in turning marks at the Tuskar and Fastnet Rocks. The first of the Class40 fleet – the French boat Unicorn – confirmed entry this week in the 2024 SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race from Wicklow on June 22nd
This weekend is expected to see the Entry List for the SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race on June 22nd going through the 40 mark, with a good selection of boats already providing a healthy mix of internationally-renowned craft lining up…
Met Éireann meteorologist Joanna Donnelly with her latest book at Malahide marina
Met Éireann meteorologist Joanna Donnelly recently earned the title of “Optimist of the Year” from an Irish Times letter writer for her take on yet another wet spell. As correspondent Kate Power recalled, Donnelly had been describing a rainfront that…
Claud Monet’s impression of the August 1900 Sailing Olympics at Le Havre. This was the first modern Olympic Sailing event ever completed on salt water, and was the second stage of a two-part regatta in which Part 1 had been raced on the River Seine near Paris in May. A sailing event had been scheduled for the first modern Olympiad at Athens in 1896, but persistent gales on the Aegean Sea made its staging impossible. Image Courtesy MM
Olympians are different from you and me. In the final analysis, that’s what being Olympian is all about. For whether we like it or not, the vivid clarity of an Olympic medal is one of the few ways that sailing…
Galway RNLI lifeboat operations manager Mike Swan
How a wise kayaker rescued by east Cork’s Ballycotton lifeboat signed up as a volunteer and Galway city’s cross-agency rapid rescue system are among topics on RTÉ Radio 1’s special Seascapes series tonight. The final episode of the three-part series…
President of Irish Sailing, John Twomey
Sailing is in a very healthy state the President of Irish Sailing told the organisation’s annual general meeting in the Royal Cork Yacht Club at Crosshaven in Cork Harbour. “We’re growing the membership and participation on the water in Ireland…

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