Menu

Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Displaying items by tag: Britton Brothers

#Surfing - The video above, via The Score, captures the various surfing adventures of Meath native Maxie Hill, who left Ireland's shores for the waves of Indonesia for what was planned to be a three-month trip.

But five years on, he's still spends much of his time in South East Asia, supporting his surfing habit as a chef Australia - working for Rick Stein, no less.

His short film A Letter To Home is a fitting self-shot tribute to the waves that drive his passion.

That's a passion shared by the Britton brothers of Rossnowlagh in Co Donegal, whose lives changed forever when two of the first surfboards ever used in Ireland fell into their laps in the early 1960s.

The Irish Times recounts the incredible story of these four brothers – Barry, Willie, Conor and Brian – who taught themselves how to surf from movies and magazines, and became the foundation of Ireland's surfing community as we know it today.

If not for them we wouldn't have the Irish Surfing Association as we know it, nor would we have Barry's daughter Easkey Britton, a world-class surfer and pioneer in her own right.

The Britton brothers are the subject of a recent RTÉ Radio documentary, The Beach Boys of Rossnowlagh, that's available to stream or download HERE.

Published in Surfing

Esailing & Virtual Sailing information

The concept of e-sailing, or virtual sailing, is based on a computer game sailing challenge that has been around for more than a decade.

The research and development of software over this time means its popularity has taken off to the extent that it has now become a part of the sailing seascape and now allows people to take an 'active part' in some of the most famous regattas across the world such as the Vendée Globe, Route du Rhum, Sydney Hobart, Volvo Ocean Race, America’s Cup and some Olympic venues too, all from the comfort of their armchair.

The most popular model is the 'eSailing World Championship'. It is an annual esports competition, first held in 2018 and officially recognised by World Sailing, the sports governing body.

The eSailing World Championship is a yearly competition for virtual sailors competing on the Virtual Regatta Inshore game.

The contract to run the event was given to a private company, Virtual Regatta that had amassed tens of thousands of sailors playing offshore sailing routing game following major offshore races in real-time.

In April 2020, the company says on its website that it has 35,000 active players and 500,000 regattas sailed.

Virtual Regatta started in 2010 as a small team of passionate designers, engineers, and entrepreneurs gathered around the idea that virtual sailing sports games can mix with real races and real skippers.