Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

#Angling - Inland Fisheries Ireland has launched its Sponsorship Fund for 2018 which will support angling events and initiatives across the country. The fund supported 79 events and initiatives across 19 counties to the tune of €30,000 in 2017, with…

#InlandWaters - The Waterways Ireland 2018 Event Programme is open for 2018 and welcoming applications from waterways and waterside communities seeking support to start and grow sustainable events. Taking place annually for the past 12 years, the programme has supported…

2017 was the best season for Irish Sea offshore racing (ISORA) in many years with 68 boats taking part in the 15-race series writes ISORA Chairman Peter Ryan. In 2016, 54 boats took part. To put these numbers in context, in…

#Jobs - The closing dates for applications are approaching for number of temporary research and administrative vacancies with the Marine Institute. A self-motivated, enthusiastic and experienced Administrative Assistant (Executive Officer) is being sought to ensure high quality, timely and accurate reporting…

Few international sporting events gives a stronger sense of the cohesive nature of the Irish diaspora than the annual Rolex Sydney Hobart Race writes W M Nixon. For there were certainly sailors of Irish descent in the first race of…

Irish Beneteau dealer BJ Marine is back on the water early in 2018 after a strong run of boat sales brought 2017 to a buoyant close for the County Wicklow firm.  As Afloat.ie reported earlier, last Autumn's Cannes and Southampton…

#Coastguard - The Irish Coast Guard saved 335 lives and assisted more than 3,300 people in 2017, as RTÉ News reports. Among the details of its end of year review, the coastguard said its volunteer units and helicopter SAR crews…

#StormEleanor - Just days after Storm Dylan swept across the north of Ireland, winter storm number five is set to move in off the Atlantic later this afternoon (Tuesday 2 January). Met Éireann has issued a Status Orange weather warning…

#NorthSails - North Sails Ireland is looking back on a record-breaking year in 2017 for the global sailmaker's offshore clients, all of whom were using its 3Di performance sails. Last January, Armel Le Cleác’h sailed Banque Populaire VIII around the world…

#FerryNews - Irish Continental Group (ICG) parent company of Irish Ferries, is to invest in a €165.2m cruise ferry that will be the world's largest in terms of vehicle capacity when completed by German shipbuilder Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesselschaft (FSG). The cruise…

#VOR - Overall Volvo Ocean Race leader MAPFRE was at the head of the fleet off the starting line as the boats raced up Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay immediately after the start for Leg 4 to Hong Kong earlier today…

#DublinPort - In recent weeks Dublin firefighters scaled 110ft high container gantry cranes in Dublin Port so to play out real life situations as part of an ongoing height training programme. Firefighters and paramedics from Dublin Fire Brigade were invited…

Fethard RNLI launched its inshore lifeboat this afternoon (Monday January 1 2018) to conduct a joint search with Fethard Coast Guard after a reported sighting of a kayak floating in the sea in the water off Crooke Chapel, Passage East,…

Donaghadee RNLI volunteer lifeboat crew assisted two people to safety this morning (1 January) after they got into difficulty on their jet ski and a member of the public raised the alarm. The volunteer crew were paged at 11.42am by…

Rosslare Harbour RNLI all-weather lifeboat was launched this afternoon (1 January) at 1.15pm to go to the assistance of a surfer caught in a dangerous rip current. Two surfers had got caught in the rip current off Curracloe beach in…

Who gets your vote as Afloat Sailor of the Year 2017? The past year, in the view of Winkie Nixon, has produced some 'extra-special sailors', and over the past 12 months we have picked out 28 individual sailors and pairings who have excelled in…

Professional sailor Conall Morrison, from Derry-Londonderry, was given a standing ovation at the official Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race (RSHYR) Prize Giving in Australia yesterday evening after not only skippering his HotelPlanner.com team to its first race victory, in the…

The exemplary rescue by Lough Swilly-trained skipper Conall Morrison (35) in the Clipper 70 Class in the early stages of the Rolex Sydney-Hobart Race has been rewarded with a full two hour redress by the International Jury for the time…

The runaway success of Irish-Australian sailors in the Rolex Sydney-Hobart Race 2017 ended the year on an unprecedented high. Gordon Maguire of Howth may already have had two overall wins under his very experienced belt, but his third with the…

Finn Lynch (21) of the National Yacht Club (NYC) is the Afloat.ie “Sailor of the Month” (Olympic) on the strength of his Silver in the Lasers in the Gran Canaria Olympic Week in mid-December, sailing nine races in light to…