Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

In a warm-up for the 12-day long GP14 Worlds in Skerries in early August, a very competitive 40-strong fleet came to the line for the Ridgeway Irish GP14 Championships hosted by the Royal North of Ireland Yacht Club on the…

Peter Kennedy and Stephen Kane from Strangford Lough YC topped the fourteen-strong fleet of Flying Fifteens at the Northern Championships hosted by County Antrim YC on the north shore of Belfast Lough. Competitors travelled from as far away as Draycote…

Belfast Harbour handled a record volume of trade last year, with Brexit checks cited as one factor. The port said 25.6 million tonnes was handled in 2021, an increase of 9% on the previous year. The trade volume was also…

The light winds forecast for the Ailsa Craig Race from Royal Ulster on Belfast Lough on Friday night turned out to be at times 17 knots, which for Stuart Cranston’s Ker 32 Hijacker appeared just at the wrong time when…

Royal Ulster’s Classic offshore overnight Ailsa Craig race will start from the club line at Bangor in Belfast Lough on Friday evening (17th) with the first warning signal at 19.00 hrs. On a good day, the Craig can be seen…

Belfast Lough-based Artemis Technologies, the global leader in green maritime innovation, has launched to market the world’s first commercially viable 100% electric, high-speed foiling workboat range. The first commercial vessels to be built in Belfast in many decades, are billed…

There has been a surprisingly mixed reaction to the news that next weekend, in celebration of the Royal Platinum Jubilee, the sailing-mad town of Bangor on Belfast Lough will be conferred with City Status. Joy has not been unalloyed. Apart…

Hundreds of native oysters have returned to Belfast Lough as part of efforts to bring the ‘ocean superheroes’ back from the brink of extinction. The ambitious aquaculture restoration project, officially launched on Friday (20 May) by Ulster Wildlife to mark…

Donaghadee RNLI Lifeboat was launched on Thursday 19 May, to assist a yacht taking water onboard approximately 12 miles North East of Bangor, County Down. The volunteer crew of Donaghadee Lifeboat were requested to launch by Belfast Coastguard on Thursday…

A win in the final race for the appropriately named Final Call II in Kip Regatta at the weekend clinched an overall first in the RC 35 division for John Minnis’s Archambault 35 from Royal Ulster and Royal North of…

The first Northern Ireland athlete selected for Mary Peters Trust funding is Belfast-based sailor, Lauren McDowell, who has received a £500 bursary. Each of the ten athletes will be selected by Lady Mary and her Trust to receive a £500 bursary…

Bangor RNLI’s volunteers came to the rescue of six women on a yacht after its engine failed during a passage to Glenarm in Co Antrim. The inshore lifeboat Jessie Hillyard was launched on Monday morning (9 May) from Belfast Lough…

Belfast Harbour has announced its launch programme of celebratory events to mark the landmark 175th anniversary year of Belfast Harbour Commissioners. Local communities and visitors alike are invited to share in a summer-long calendar of events that will mark the…

Artemis Technologies, the global leader in green maritime innovation, has just released the first pictures of its 100% electric, high-speed foiling workboat prototype on Belfast Lough. The vessel was designed and built to include the production specification drivetrain, battery and…

Ballyholme Bay in Bangor on Belfast Lough is a Jekyll-&-Hyde sort of place. For much of the time, it’s serene, with excellent sailing waters off a neat urban waterfront above a tidy esplanade on its western shoreline, while the eastern…

Five winds from eight races gave local sailor Bobby Driscoll from the hosting Ballyholme Yacht Club a clear overall win ahead of clubmate Emily McAfee in the 51-boat Topper 5.3 event, one of the biggest fleets of the Youth Sailing…