Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

It may seem a bit odd to talk about Volvo Cork Week 2022, which gets going this weekend, as being “the exuberant expression of the spirit of Cork sailing”, when any detailed study of the hugely-varied entry list eloquently affirms…

With the almost melancholy passing of Mid-Summer’s Day, the sailing season is taking on a different look, a distinctly-changed mood and flavour. For in normal times – if anyone can remember when you could talk of such things – there…

Northabout, the 47-foot Westport expedition yacht of Jarlath Cunnane from Mayo, which with a crew, many of them Galway Hooker sailors, completed an Arctic circumnavigation of the world with a transit of the Northeast Passage north of Russia, has been…

When 23-year-old Michael Chapman Pincher enlisted as crew for an Atlantic voyage back in 1974, he had never sailed so much as a dinghy. Nor did he realise that the skipper of Gay Gander and his sailing companion were actually…

We can only be wishing this morning that the traditional-type low pressure areas which march across the Atlantic from New England towards Old Ireland could take aboard some of the strict Sabbatarianism of the regions they’re passing through in their…

It is “on time and on budget”. That’s the Marine Institute’s new 25 million euro research ship, RV Tom Crean, due for delivery this autumn. Named after the Kerry polar explorer who worked with both Ernest Shackleton and Sir Robert Scott,…

With the four year pandemic-imposed gap since the previous edition in 2018, today’s restoration of the biennial SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race from Wicklow has been attracting an unprecedented amount of countdown attention and discussion. There has been an across-the-board…

Irish fishing industry leaders have warned that the costs of marine diesel are so high they are challenging the resilience of the Irish fishing fleet. CEOs of the main Irish industry organisations say fishing operations are being made uneconomical and…

After 42 years of the 704 miles biennial Round Ireland Yacht Race from Wicklow, there must be hundreds – indeed, possibly thousands - of sailors throughout Ireland and beyond who will be pausing thoughtfully from time to time during the…

“There was a lot of work, hull planking, fitting the stem post, caulking, filling, fairing, sanding, priming and painting. We lost over two years on the project due to Covid and this old girl was in a worse condition than…

On June 25th, Clare coast guard volunteer Bernard Lucas, along with Cormac Coyne of Inis Oir and Eoin Keane from Kilfenora will set out to climb 5,895 metres (19,341 feet) to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro the highest mountain in…

How can you make sense of a sport which features at least 143 World Championships? It’s a question which was first asked many years ago when the then International Sailing Federation (now World Sailing) accorded official “International” status to two…

The Round Ireland Race is the dominant focus of Wicklow Sailing Club at the moment, but there is a lot more to the club. The members take pride in describing their club as “a small family-oriented sailing club run by…

There has been a surprisingly mixed reaction to the news that next weekend, in celebration of the Royal Platinum Jubilee, the sailing-mad town of Bangor on Belfast Lough will be conferred with City Status. Joy has not been unalloyed. Apart…

They’d seven entries in the first Fastnet Race of 1925, and seven entries started yesterday morning in the inaugural 240-mile Kinsale YC Inishtearacht Race - there and back from Kinsale, round the only lighthouse island of Ireland’s furthest west Blasket…

The idea for the Inishtearaght Race originated because Kinsale sailors thought that the best and most scenic part of the Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race is west of Kinsale. So what about a race from Kinsale around the Blaskets and…