Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

A Northern Ireland fisherman who landed a blue lobster last week says it was a “one in two million” shot, as Belfast Live reports. Stuart Brown made the marine wildlife discovery of his lifetime on Friday (3 February) while hauling…

Bangor Waterfront Development will receive £40 million in funding as part of the Belfast Region City Deal. Ards and North Down Borough Council welcomed the news a year after the UK and NI Executive Ministers signed the first-ever City Deal…

Belfast Lough will be awash with boats over the weekend of 24th and 25th June when the RS Elite Irish Championship coincides with an RC35 open event. Both fixtures will be hosted by Royal Ulster Yacht Club in Bangor on…

The last time the RC35s raced in Belfast Lough was in the 2022 Bangor Town Regatta. And so successful was the class that it can look forward to a stand-alone event in June this season. Hosted by the Royal Ulster…

Helen’s Bay is a small village on the Belfast to Bangor railway line on the south shore of Belfast Lough and is named after Helen Blackwood, Baroness Dufferin and Clandeboye, who lived in the early nineteenth century. It’s not recorded…

A Viking burial site was discovered at Ballyholme Bay on the North Down coast in 1903 suggesting that the Vikings landed there. Although the Belfast Kayak Club landed there, too last weekend on their Christmas outing, they certainly didn’t grab…

It was that time of year again for the keen Stand Up Paddlers to get into the Santa and Elf costumes and take to the water in Bangor Harbour on Belfast Lough. Eighty-two went afloat and raised £600 for the…

Litter is the scourge of many coastlines, and Bangor in North Down in Northern Ireland is no exception. But one person (and there are many) regularly litter picks in an adopted place (#AdoptASpot) on Seacliff Road, near the Long Hole…

Belfast Lough Sailability has had a lot to celebrate in recent months with sailors taking part in the 2022 President’s Cup, Hansa Irish Championships and 2.4mR Irish Nationals. In August, Belfast Lough Sailability hosted the 2022 President’s Cup which incorporated…

After last week’s crash and burn single race, this week, the RS400 Winter Series sailors at RNIYC on Belfast Lough were met by a more manageable 14-20 kts from the southwest, but about 10 degrees colder. Bob Hastings had done a…

BBC News reports that the body of a man who went missing from a ferry in Belfast Lough late last month has been found. Claims that a man had fallen overboard from a ferry on the night of Saturday 29…

Peter Kennedy and Stevie Kane were first in the single heavy weather race of the RS400 Frostbite Series at the Royal North of Ireland Yacht Club on Belfast Lough last Sunday.  Out of the thirteen boats that raced, there were…

That Scottish word dreich aptly described the weather at Ballyholme Bay on Belfast Lough the last weekend in October – wet, dull and dreary – but livened up by the colourful windsurfers and wingfoils.They were there for the Ulster Windsurfing…

Alistair McCreery, a 24-year-old canoeist from East Belfast, is the sixth athlete to have been awarded a £500 bursary as part of the ongoing Hughes Insurance partnership with the Mary Peters Trust. The £5,000 bursary programme is now in its second…

The RS400 Winter series kicked off for the 15th year on Sunday 6th, November out of Belfast Lough’s Royal North of Ireland YC. For this very popular series, many people come to compete from all over NI, sometimes fly-in from…

Some would say that there were better racing conditions at the end of the 2022 season for the Royal Ulster Yacht Club Autumn Series than during the summer. A total of 13 boats in two classes competed over nine races…