Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Ports in Northern Ireland with physical posts are set for funding ahead of the UK’s exit from the EU, a Stormont committee has been told. According to the Press Association, Junior Minister Declan Kearney told the committee that the Executive had…

Danish shipping group AP Moller-Maersk has today warned of a sharp drop in global container volumes due to the coronavirus pandemic, sending its shares down sharply. The coronavirus epidemic has thrown the global container shipping trade off balance as global…

Bangor Marina on Belfast Lough may be closed but the Harbour is certainly not out of bounds to commercial traffic and the 120-ton displacement tug Coastworker arrived yesterday afternoon. She will tow the modular barge currently berthed alongside the commercial…

Shipping container demand will bounce back relatively quickly as lockdowns are eased worldwide, believes leading digitally driven freight forwarder iContainers, bringing potential new challenges as well as opportunities. “I’m cautiously optimistic that we will see a relatively quick recovery when…

Michel Barnier gave EU ambassadors on Tuesday a downbeat assessment of the negotiations on the future relationship with the UK. The EU's chief negotiator also spoke briefly about the row over the EU having an office in Belfast. As RTE…

Seafarers from the UK of up to 2,000 are stranded on ships around the world because of coronavirus lockdowns, the industry's trade body has told the BBC. The UK Chamber of Shipping wants the UK government to become the first to…

Salvors successfully offloaded the last recoverable cargo from the grounded MV Kaami in western Scotland last Thursday, 30 April. As previously reported on Afloat.ie, the MV Kaami ran aground in the Minch between Skye and Lewis on 21 March, just…

Europe has since 2011 been facing numerous new challenges and has defined new policy ambitions. However, the health crisis the world is facing today risks to radically overturn current realities, assumptions and strategies as the European Sea Ports Organisation (ESPO)…

The European Sea Ports Organisation (ESPO) regret to inform that they feel obliged to cancel their Conference 2020, which was due to take place in one month in Oslo, Norway. ESPO commented that this was a tough decision but in…

The Irish Exporters Association (IEA) is to host tomorrow (Friday, 24 April at 12 noon) a free webinar with a #COVID-19 update from the UK. The webinar is to focus on business supports and on the resilience of key road…

Work continues at pace to remove cargo from the MV Kaami which ran aground off Skye in western Scotland after sailing from Drogheda Port last month. A further 22 skips of cargo were removed yesterday (Monday 20 April), meaning a total…

Across the Irish Sea from Dublin Port is the Port of Liverpool’s deep water container terminal, Liverpool2 where recently a new record was broken at the north-west England port. The record goes to containership MSC Federica which berthed last month…

According to the European Sea Ports Organisation (ESPO), ever since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, all European ports have been fully operational and continue to do everything they can to fulfil their essential role. This is the supply chain…

Exports from Ireland in February saw a sharp fall, according to data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO), although it appears that this was a result of a downturn in sales of chemicals and pharmaceuticals rather than the coronavirus. Those sales…

The fourth and final 'W' series of newbuilds for Arklow Shipping was launched earlier this month, writes Jehan Ashmore. Arklow Wood was successfully launched at the Ferus Smit's shipyard in Leer, Germany. As Afloat reported a previous sister Arklow Willow…

Europe’s ports have been doing everything possible since the start of the Covid-19 crisis to ensure the continuity of their operations and thus the security of supply. European ports have activated contingency plans to ensure that ports remain fully operational…