Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Yesterday’s report on Afloat.ie of the major changes shaping up in the ownership structure of the UK/McWilliam Sailmakers business in Crosshaven clearly rings a bell with many in the sailing community at home and abroad. The remarkable response has reinforced…

Hello and you’re very welcome to my weekly Podcast…. where this week I have been talking to a sailor with great courage….So listen to the Podcast below which takes you onto the deck of a 39-foot yacht at Crosshaven in Cork…

The 275-mile Volvo Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race overall win was still open to challenge until the leader on the water, Paul O’Higgins’ JPK 10.80 Rockabill VI, had cleared the Fastnet Rock. However, with every mile sailed thereafter, it looked…

On my PODCAST this week I am dealing with three particular subjects – the Government’s lack of interest in the United Nations honouring of seafarers this Sunday; concern in coastal communities from where there are claims that senior officials in…

The people of Ireland – sailors and farmers alike - are gasping for a bit of real summer. But with Met Eireann predicting that next week will be favourable for hay-making, there’s a dilemma for grassland farmers who like a…

Hello and you’re welcome to my weekly podcast on Afloat, based on my This Island Nation radio programme. While debate continues – and so do efforts – to get another Tall Ship for Ireland – that would provide sail training…

It started in 1993 as a gentler (it was hoped) biennial alternative to the Round Ireland Race, with the 275-mile Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race being the brainchild of Martin Crotty and Peter Cullen of the National Yacht Club writes…

Sailing is a vehicle sport. No matter how well we may succeed in spreading the cost of buying and running a boat through group ownership and other schemes, inevitably it has an inbuilt level of expenditure which other sports that…

Welcome to my new series of MacSweeney Podcasts on Afloat, in which I’ll be reporting on sailing and all to do with the culture, history, tradition and development of maritime Ireland. These short Podcasts, about five minutes duration, will partner the…

Despite some interruptions from either too much or too little wind, the regular club sailing programme for 2017 is now fully under way, and this weekend is additionally so well filled with major regional and national events that you could…

A ”Truism” is defined as a self-evident truth. That underlines the accuracy of the descriptive saying “out-of-sight-out-of-mind” and the application nof it to the attitude of the Irish Government towards seafarers. Every day Ireland’s ports are depended upon by the…

Irish sailing’s informal inter-club competition has named a “Club of the Year” annually since 1979, and since 1986 the title’s steadfast sponsorship support from Mitsubishi Motors has made it an integral part of the national sailing scene. Yet it has…

Once a fortnight I sit in the studios of the Community Radio Station in Youghal, to present and produce This Island Nation, which I describe as "the maritime programme reporting on marine culture, history and tradition, bringing together the community…

After the accelerating build-up to Olympic Medal success throughout the summer of 2016, there was hope in some sections of the Irish sailing community that the mood of 2017 might be different in pace. Tokyo 2020 still seemed very far…

Hello and welcome aboard this week’s edition of your maritime programme Seascapes, tonight we hear about the commemoration of the United States Navy in Cobh one hundred years ago we’ll be talking to Commander Taussig’s great grand daughter Elizabeth Helmer,…

In an exclusive interview for my weekly This Island Nation podcast, the Chairman of Cork Port says that it is moving “from a city port to a sea port.” Listen to John Mullins as he outlines why the port company…