Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Ian Moore, originally of Carrickfergus, and Afloat.ie “Sailor of the Month” in October 2016 after navigating the Italian Cookson 50 Mascalzone Latino to overall victory in the Rolex Middle Sea Race last year, is not defending his Middle Sea title…

The GP14 Annual Hot Toddy event took place over the weekend of the 14th / 15th October 2017 on Lough Owel hosted by Mullingar Sailing Club. Racing began on Saturday on flat water and with the wind shifting in force…

#Ophelia - Storm Ophelia may have brought on a repeat of last year’s infestation of Portuguese men o’war, an Irish zoologist has warned. As The Irish Times reports, Dr Tom Doyle of NUI Galway is appealing for caution along Ireland’s…

#Fishing - The Marine Survey Office (MSO) of the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport (DTTAS) wishes to appoint a panel of surveyors to conduct surveys of fishing vessels of less than 15m length overall, in accordance with the Code…

#navalvisits- A Royal Canadian Navy frigate HMCS Montréal made a morning arrival to Dublin Port yesterday having taken part in a major UK led exercise involving a large NATO fleet off Scotland last week, writes Jehan Ashmore. The call of…

#BrownTrout - There is a high level of genetic diversity in brown trout populations evident from all catchments studied. That’s according to the findings of a groundbreaking ‘citizen science’ research into the genetic makeup of Ireland’s brown trout and sea…

Record wave heights were captured by the Irish Weather Buoy Network during Hurricane Ophelia on Monday 16th October, causing one of the five weather buoys to break it moorings. The highest wave was recorded off the Irish coastline at 16.00…

#ferrycharter - Condor Ferries only conventional tonnage ferry on UK-Channel Islands service, Commodore Clipper recently resumed service before the English half-term break having spent over a month in dry dock in Cornwall, writes Jehan Ashmore. Whilst Commodore Clipper was away…

#RNLI - Arklow RNLI was launched yesterday evening (Tuesday 17 October) following a call for assistance from the crew of a sailing vessel reporting mechanical failure. The volunteer crew on board Arklow's all-weather lifeboat proceeded to the reported position approximately…

Dingle today is closely associated with superb hospitality, good food, the sporting entertainment of the biennial Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race, and the eternal sense of the nearby presence of the mighty Atlantic in one direction, and majestic mountains soaring…

Is it good enough that surfers, sailboarders, swimmers and yachtsmen put to sea, quite literally in the eye of a hurricane?  The overwhelming response online seems to be a resounding 'No'. There are now calls for legislation to penalise people…

#freightferry - Irish Sea freight-only ro-ro operator, Seatruck Ferries has from today increased capacity by adding Tuesday morning sailings on the core Dublin-Liverpool route, writes Jehan Ashmore. Due to increased demand, Seatruck Ferries new Tuesday morning sailings on the busy…

#TransitGateway - As part of “Port Perspectives”, Transit Gateway is a project that documents the transitional changes of the shape of Dublin Port from its medieval shoreline to its current infrastructure. Transit Gateway as an artistic mapping cartography shows the…

A former hyper-active hurricane, only very recently re-classed as a severe tropical storm, hits southwest Ireland at dawn from south of southwest on a mid-October Monday morning writes W M Nixon. It spends the entire day tracking destructively across country,…

#ferry - The highest number of lorries and trailers travelling on P&O Ferries between Larne and Cairnryan was reached in the third quarter of the year than it has in any Q3 since 2011. As the News Letter writes the…

#VOR - Three-time Volvo Ocean Race winner Brad Jackson has been announced as skipper of Team AkzoNobel after the surprise dismissal of Simeon Tienpont at the weekend. Jackson, who coached the Swedish all-women entry Team SCA in the 2014-15 edition,…

#RNLI - Both Larne and Bangor RNLI were requested to launch last night (Monday 16 October) by Belfast Coastguard during Storm Ophelia. The volunteer lifeboat crew pagers sounded at 9.25pm following reports of a person in the water at Whitehead…

UCD Sailing Team set off yesterday to compete in the Student Yachting World Cup, held near Marseille, France. Having qualified against stiff competition at the Student Yachting Nationals in April, the team will represent Ireland in the week to come.…

Niall and Nikki Meagher in Ffantastic Mr Fox had two great race wins in very difficult shifty conditions in the National Yacht Club Flying fifteen Frostbite Series on Sunday. The strong winds of the morning had abated and by the…

A video of a yacht that broke free of its mooring in the teeth of Storm Ophelia in Cork Harbour, has recorded over 50k views on social media. The Ensign Bar in Monkstown Co. Cork posted the vid on Facebook…