Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

The good ship Ilen, the 56ft Trading Ketch of Limerick, has been in the slipway cradle at Liam Hegarty's boatyard in Oldcourt upriver of Baltimore in West Cork this week, enjoying the relatively dry weather and the attention of her…

The Boat Building Academy (BBA), based in Lyme Regis, Dorset, is seeking seven committed and enthusiastic individuals to change their lives via its 40-week boat building course. Starting mid-May, the course will teach skills such as lofting, traditional, modern and…

The tallship Dunbrody Famine Ship was brought by tug across the Barrow last Monday to New Ross Boat Yard to go into dry dock for three months, during which time she will have extensive works carried out. Work began on…

When Anthony and Sally O'Leary of Crosshaven quietly decided that some day they were going to make the classic 50ft 1949-vintage sloop Northele a member of their extended sailing family, it was a sort of Breakfast Epiphany. The boat had…

Steve Morris of Kilrush Boatyard and his lead boat-builder Dan Mill are busy these days, as their team have two further Dublin Bay 21s under construction for the Hal Sisk/Fionan de Barra project, and this week they launched the new…

"The Lady Min is pretty special, and she performs really well…." The world was a great place to be when the Lady Min was an idea, and there was a 'can do' attitude in West Cork. Simon O'Keeffe is carrying…

When glassfibre boat construction started becoming mainstream, there were those who said it would never last as a manufacturing trend, for in those days plastic and longevity somehow weren't associated concepts. But then, as the builders overcame problems such as…

Jimmy Furey, who has died at the age of 94 was very probably the finest boatbuilder of his generation. He was also a man strong-willed enough to do what very few of others ever do and live life totally on…

Betty Amstrong explores past boatbuilding ventures in Ballyholme in the seaside town of Bangor on Belfast Lough. Did you know that before Enrico Caproni built his famous ‘Palais de Dance’ in 1928 on Seacliff Road that there was a shipyard…

What motivates a man to buy a wreck over a hundred years old and decide that he can repair her? Why bother and was he ‘mad’ to think of doing so? My Podcast this week is with a man who…

Safehaven Marine’s pilot boat for Puerto Rico has undergone sea trials off the Cork coast ahead of delivery — and Thunder Child II was with it in the swell to capture the action (also caught from above by drone — see…

Safehaven Marine put Thunder Child II to the test against the might of Storm Brendan yesterday — showing just how well the wave-piercing powerboat can handle the roughest elements at sea. Sea trials for the XSV20 design began a year ago…

Artemis Technologies, the world’s leading high-performance maritime design and applied technologies company, will collaborate with Tuco Marine Group to integrate its new electric eFoiler propulsion system into an 11m carbon fibre vessel. This will serve as a demonstrator vessel as…

Safehaven Marine have delivered an Interceptor 48 pilot boat to Fonnes Batservice of Norway. As Afloat previously reported when the order was placed over a year ago, the new Pilot boat is Safehaven’s 41st pilot boat delivered and the 16th Interceptor…

Safehaven Marine has shared a video of the recent delivery of its latest XSV20, named Safehaven, to its owner Jack Setton from Cork to Sardinia. Safehaven was commissioned by and built for Jack Setton, a well-known name in the superyacht…

Scribbler, my Sigma 33 yacht, was hauled ashore this week. Now she stands in her cradle in Castlepoint Boatyard in Crosshaven in Cork Harbour for her out-of-the-water winter rest. It is the annual end-of-season ritual. There are owners who don’t…