Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

With no Frostbite dinghy racing to distract us over the winter, everyone is yearning to get their feet wet in a Fireball so understandably there was a healthy audience for an online training session last Thursday night. The coaching was…

The Flying Fifteen Association of Ireland (FFAI) hosted their delayed AGM on the Zoom platform last Wednesday night (13th Jan) with a virtual attendance from Dun Laoghaire, Strangford Lough and Dunmore East and, refreshingly, Galway, where there is a significant…

The Irish Fireball Class Association held its AGM a few weeks back, and we had one individual who chose to take a break from the committee but compensated for that with the addition of a number of new members. Hermine…

With the triennial elections for Fireball International now completed and all the Executive positions currently filled, FI is once more ready to chart a way forward for the Class. This year's elections saw a number of stalwarts of the Class…

As Zoom is the lingua franca of our online communications these days, twenty-odd Fireballers congregated on the online platform on Thursday night past, 29th October, for the Class AGM. A 40-minute session certainly concentrated the mind for a prompt meeting,…

There is always a danger with putting together an article of this sort! People who are omitted from the assessment could be offended! Assumptions that people will be in attendance may be unfounded! So, in the best interests of putting…

Dun Laoghaire Flying Fifteen Class Captain, Neil Colin of the DMYC, declared that his Captain's Prize would be contested on Saturday (past) with both races to count and no discards applying. In the case of a tie, the second race…

On the last midweek night of the DBSC season – truncated by a delayed start but extended by two weeks, both due to the understandable restrictions imposed by Covid-19, thirteen Flying Fifteens enjoyed a genteel night on Dublin Bay. The…

For a Class that has been synonymous with the National Yacht Club, for a significant period of time, – there are seventeen Flying Fifteens parked on the deck – it was entirely appropriate that there should be a good turnout…

A year ago, the Irish Flying Fifteen community was gearing itself up for the Subaru World Championships in Dun Laoghaire Harbour when a 72-boat fleet contested the Championships in what was considered, post-event, to have been a very successful regatta.…

At a time when the Irish Fireball fleet should have been in Howth, welcoming Fireballers from all over the World to the 2020 Fireball World Championships, a 13-boat fleet was contesting what we think is the first National Championship to…

The Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) season first race was last Thursday but due to COVID-19 it never happened. To mark the occasion, the following imaginary Flying Fifteen race report was written by Cormac Bradley for the biggest one-design fleet…

The DMYC has taken the decision to cancel the remaining Frostbite races in response to Government guidelines over the Coronavirus spread.  While it is acknowledged that the numbers taking part do not get to the threshold of outdoor events for…

After three Sundays of no racing due to the ongoing storms of winter, the Dun Laoghaire DMYC Frostbite fleet was able to take to the water yesterday in what were still quite brisk winds but nothing like what we had…

Yet another early call has been taken to cancel the DMYC Frostbites this Sunday at Dun Laoghaire Harbour with winds of mid to high twenties gusting to mid-forties predicted for race time. Storm Dennis has an element of “Denis the…

A fleet in the mid-fifties braved a chilly Dun Laoghaire harbour today for the third race of Series 2 of the 2019/20 DMYC Frostbites. Wind strength during the morning in advance of racing wasn’t as brisk as forecast but the…

With wind speeds of 37 knots being recorded off the end of the East Pier at lunchtime on Saturday (on a handheld anemometer) and Storm Brendan blowing hooligans today, the DMYC Dinghy Frostbites of Sunday 12th January could be said…

The second half of the Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club’s Frostbite Series gut underway yesterday in what were almost balmy conditions for the 5th of January. From the middle of the week, this author’s favourite weather website XCWeather was suggesting…

Series 1 of the DMYC-hosted Frostbites closed with a marathon race, in relative terms, yesterday with a modest turnout of 44 boats, a wind that fluctuated between 170 and 180º with a high of just over 10 knots and some…

Fifty-eight boats took to the water for the first Frostbite Sunday of December, which for a lot of people is the trigger for the countdown to Christmas, writes Cormac Bradley. From Friday afternoon this column’s favoured web-based weather forecasting site…