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A Sigma 33 One Design keelboat racing on Dublin Bay Photo: AfloatA Sigma 33 One Design keelboat racing on Dublin Bay Photo: Afloat

Displaying items by tag: Helly Hansen

Viking Marine have teamed up with Helly Hansen to give away a Crew Midlayer Jacket — a favourite for sailors on and off the water.

The Crew Midlayer Jacket is serious in protecting you from wind, insulating you from the chill onboard and ashore, and drying out super fast if you do get a soak.

To be in with a chance to win, follow Viking Marine on Instagram, like the competition post, tag three friend and share on Instagram Stories.

The winner will be announced on Sunday 14 February — it could be an extra-special Valentine’s Day for someone you love!

Published in Viking Marine
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World-leading sailing apparel brand Helly Hansen has signed on as official clothing supplier to The Ocean Race.

With over 140 years of knowledge, experience and expertise in developing performance-driven apparel, the Norwegian-based brand is trusted by professionals around the world..

Helly Hansen has also developed lasting partnerships with the sport’s top athletes and has been an official apparel sponsor for teams in The Ocean Race since the initial event nearly 50 years ago.

“Since 1973, The Ocean Race has been demanding the best of everyone who participates,” says race chairman Richard Brisius.

“As sailors we not only love to promote the highest levels of competition on the ocean, but we are also working to promote and implement solutions towards restoring ocean health.

“In Helly Hansen, we have a partner who is equally dedicated to performance and to being a leader in contributing to a healthier ocean.”

‘We are honoured to collaborate with The Ocean Race, a partner who also holds sustainability as a true core value, in restoring ocean health’

Helly Hansen chief executive Paul Stoneham added: “No other sailing race in the world is as challenging and rigorous as The Ocean Race, attracting the sport’s top professionals who are pushed to their limits in extraordinary conditions.

“Helly Hansen is committed to working closely with professionals to develop gear that they can trust no matter what conditions they face.

“We are honoured to collaborate with The Ocean Race, a partner who also holds sustainability as a true core value, in restoring ocean health.”

As high-performance racing boats have raised the bar for technical sailing gear, Helly Hansen delivered jackets with improved Helly Tech waterproof, breathable fabric and stow-away facemasks for added protection.

In the 2014-15 edition, the brand outfitted the all-women’s Team SCA, featuring innovative, gender-specific designs that are still used across existing collections.

Today, Helly Hansen’s Ægir offshore collection is the direct result of having worked closely with The Ocean Race teams through the years.

Last refined with the MAPFRE team in the 2017-18 race, the Ægir line is the culmination of five generations of design improvements, using the sailors’ feedback to create and develop gear they can trust to withstand even the harshest environments.

The next edition of The Ocean Race will start a year later than scheduled in October 2022, as previously reported on Afloat.ie.

Published in Ocean Race

Viking Marine’s Pavilion shop might be closed today (Sunday 25 August) owing to the road closures for IRONMAN 70.30 Dun Laoghaire.

But the new clothing sale which started on Friday continues this week, with big bargains to be had from top sailing wear brands.

Save 15% off all Helly Hansen and Rooster clothing — and up to 50% on certain items — both in store and online.

Published in Viking Marine
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The official clothing collection from Helly Hansen for the 2019 Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta is now available for pre-order from the event’s retail partners Viking Marine.

And what’s more, all items ordered by Friday 14 June come with free screen printing for boat names and numbers to give that personal touch for you and your crew’s regatta campaign.

For details of the full range of men’s and women’s racing jackets, pullovers, polos, T-shirts and hats, and how to order, click HERE.

Published in Volvo Regatta
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Technical clothing brand, Helly Hansen, is continuing to strengthen its ongoing relationship with the RNLI as it announces the renewal of its contract as Official Clothing Supplier to the RNLI's lifeguards, and introduces new kit to keep the charity's professionals protected from the elements.

No stranger to protecting the globe's outdoor professionals from some of the world's harshest environments, Helly Hansen has worked in conjunction with the RNLI, to design and develop a range of products guaranteed to keep the lifeguards comfortable, dry and warm when facing the unpredictable conditions seen throughout the year on Britain's beaches.

lifeguards_hellyhansen

From LIFA patrol shirts and Polartec fleeces to waterproof, breathable jackets and smocks, Helly Hansen is passionate about producing technical clothing to protect the RNLI lifeguards - dedicated to risking their lives to save others.

New kit supplied to the RNLI lifeguards include

The RNLI Poncho is an overhead protection garment inspired by Helly Hansen's renowned workwear collection. The Poncho is quick and easy to remove in times of emergency, and features a 2 layer HellyTech construction, making it the perfect waterproof, breathable outer layer. It covers the knee and seat area, for full body protection, ensuring the lifeguards remain dry in all weather conditions.

The Track Pant is ideal for providing additional warmth on colder days. Made from Polyester, these red pants are quick drying to prevent the lifeguards from feeling the cold and wet.

The RNLI has over 800 lifeguards patrolling over 150 of the UK's beaches throughout the year. In 2009 the beach lifeguards saved more than 120 lives and assisted over 15,000 people. It is believed that two out of three people in the UK will visit a UK beach at least once during 2010, but every year over 7,000 people find themselves in serious difficulty either in the water or on the beaches

Published in Marketplace
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Win! Win! Win! We're giving away a Helly Hansen Holdall (pictured below) each day for ten days but you've got to be quick, three are gone already! Enter our facebook competition HERE. All you have to do is complete the form on the page with the correct answer. It couldn't be easier, just hurry! Thanks for your support of Ireland's boating magazine. 

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Published in Competitions
Performance apparel brand, Helly Hansen are to introduce a new collection for Spring /Summer next year. The collections are created from top-quality construction techniques, combined with a Scandinavian influence to appeal to both professionals and enthusiasts. The functional and fashionable new lines offers products ranging from technical outdoor and watersports apparel to a broad assortment of sportswear for active lifestyles.

Under the Technical range, the collection builds upon the brand's fabric and technological expertise, utilising HH Cool fabrics and LIFA Stay Dry Technology on the inside for dryness, with a Polyester exterior to evaporate sweat and cool the skin. In addition, a new series of highly breathable, windproof jackets have been designed to help athletes to regulate body temperature in cool conditions.

The Outdoor Technical collection is a professional-grade the Odin series of outerwear, insulators and base layers expands with the introduction of the Odin Lightweight Jacket. This jacket is designed to meet the tough specifications of mountain guides.

The brand also includes a versatile rainwear collection of lightweight, durable Dakota and Anchorage Jackets for men, and Aspen and Vancouver Jackets for women.

The Helly Hansen range in Watersports, has earned the trust and confidence of professional and recreational sailors for generations. In the Spring, the new Hydro Power series of dry tops, waterproof smocks, jackets, pants and sportswear for sport boat enthusiasts will also be launched.

In the Footwear Watersports range the new Watermoc grips slick rocks and decks and guards the feet from contact with unseen sea life beneath the surface.

Helly Hansen blends its nautical roots with progressive style in the Latitude 90 Leather for men and women. The Latitude 90 works perfectly when worn with denim, chinos or shorts.

'Ask and Embla' Helly Hansen's statement fashion collection goes soft with waterproof, breathable softshell coats for urban adventures. The collection of stylish sweaters, shorts, pants and footwear has been designed in clean Scandinavian styles to complement the range.

Published in Marketplace
There is a new helmsman at the wheel of Dun Laoghaire regatta next season and after taking soundings from local Dublin Bay classes, new event boss Adam Winkelmann is expecting in excess of 500 boats, despite the hard times. 'We all need to enjoy ourselves from time to time' Winkelmann, 'and that, as always, will be the focus of the regatta in July next year – great racing and good fun ashore'.

A number of classes have already committed to run open championships within the regatta including the Wayfarer UK and Irish Nationals, the J109 Open Championship, the SB3 Open Championship and a return match of the Irish Sea Championship in J80s between Ireland and Wales. The race management team headed up by Con Murphy, aided by the usual ocean of wonderful volunteers, are working to facilitate this to ensure the kind of quality race management and organisation that will ensure the success of these championships.

The non-spinnaker fleet was the largest fleet in the Regatta in 2009 and is expected again to top the numbers and provide great racing for large boats with a smaller crew.

The regatta combines the wonderful waterfront facilities of all 4 Dun Laoghaire clubs and includes support from other clubs in the Dublin area including Howth. There will be a full on entertainment programme for all participants and many more with the continued support of many of the sponsors of 2009 which included Volvo Cars, Dublin Port, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council, The Royal Marine Hotel, Helly Hansen, Dubarry and many more.

One of the highlights of the regatta are the Ladies Lunches which will again be held across a number of the clubs on the Saturday. Top Fashion, great food, a dash of style accompanies by the glass of champagne are the order of the day. All these at a very reasonable price reflecting the realities of today's tightened purse strings.

There will be more announcements in the coming weeks.

For more information visit www.dlregatta.org or event secretary Ciara Dowling at [email protected]

Published in Dublin Bay

How to sail, sailing clubs and sailing boats plus news on the wide range of sailing events on Irish waters forms the backbone of Afloat's sailing coverage.

We aim to encompass the widest range of activities undertaken on Irish lakes, rivers and coastal waters. This page describes those sailing activites in more detail and provides links and breakdowns of what you can expect from our sailing pages. We aim to bring jargon free reports separated in to popular categories to promote the sport of sailing in Ireland.

The packed 2013 sailing season sees the usual regular summer leagues and there are regular weekly race reports from Dublin Bay Sailing Club, Howth and Cork Harbour on Afloat.ie. This season and last also featured an array of top class events coming to these shores. Each year there is ICRA's Cruiser Nationals starts and every other year the Round Ireland Yacht Race starts and ends in Wicklow and all this action before July. Crosshaven's Cork Week kicks off on in early July every other year. in 2012 Ireland hosted some big international events too,  the ISAF Youth Worlds in Dun Laoghaire and in August the Tall Ships Race sailed into Dublin on its final leg. In that year the Dragon Gold Cup set sail in Kinsale in too.

2013 is also packed with Kinsale hosting the IFDS diabled world sailing championships in Kinsale and the same port is also hosting the Sovereign's Cup. The action moves to the east coast in July with the staging of the country's biggest regatta, the Volvo Dun Laoghaire regatta from July 11.

Our coverage though is not restricted to the Republic of Ireland but encompasses Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the Irish Sea area too. In this section you'll find information on the Irish Sailing Association and Irish sailors. There's sailing reports on regattas, racing, training, cruising, dinghies and keelboat classes, windsurfers, disabled sailing, sailing cruisers, Olympic sailing and Tall Ships sections plus youth sailing, match racing and team racing coverage too.

Sailing Club News

There is a network of over 70 sailing clubs in Ireland and we invite all clubs to submit details of their activities for inclusion in our daily website updates. There are dedicated sections given over to the big Irish clubs such as  the waterfront clubs in Dun Laoghaire; Dublin Bay Sailing Club, the Royal Saint George Yacht Club,  the Royal Irish Yacht Club and the National Yacht Club. In Munster we regularly feature the work of Kinsale Yacht Club and Royal Cork Yacht Club in Crosshaven.  Abroad Irish sailors compete in Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) racing in the UK and this club is covered too. Click here for Afloat's full list of sailing club information. We are keen to increase our coverage on the network of clubs from around the coast so if you would like to send us news and views of a local interest please let us have it by sending an email to [email protected]

Sailing Boats and Classes

Over 20 active dinghy and one design classes race in Irish waters and fleet sizes range from just a dozen or so right up to over 100 boats in the case of some of the biggest classes such as the Laser or Optimist dinghies for national and regional championships. Afloat has dedicated pages for each class: Dragons, Etchells, Fireball, Flying Fifteen, GP14, J24's, J80's, Laser, Sigma 33, RS Sailing, Star, Squibs, TopperMirror, Mermaids, National 18, Optimist, Puppeteers, SB3's, and Wayfarers. For more resources on Irish classes go to our dedicated sailing classes page.

The big boat scene represents up to 60% of the sail boat racing in these waters and Afloat carries updates from the Irish Cruiser Racer Association (ICRA), the body responsible for administering cruiser racing in Ireland and the popular annual ICRA National Championships. In 2010 an Irish team won the RORC Commodore's Cup putting Irish cruiser racing at an all time high. Popular cruiser fleets in Ireland are raced right around the coast but naturally the biggest fleets are in the biggest sailing centres in Cork Harbour and Dublin Bay. Cruisers race from a modest 20 feet or so right up to 50'. Racing is typically divided in to Cruisers Zero, Cruisers One, Cruisers Two, Cruisers Three and Cruisers Four. A current trend over the past few seasons has been the introduction of a White Sail division that is attracting big fleets.

Traditionally sailing in northern Europe and Ireland used to occur only in some months but now thanks to the advent of a network of marinas around the coast (and some would say milder winters) there are a number of popular winter leagues running right over the Christmas and winter periods.

Sailing Events

Punching well above its weight Irish sailing has staged some of the world's top events including the Volvo Ocean Race Galway Stopover, Tall Ships visits as well as dozens of class world and European Championships including the Laser Worlds, the Fireball Worlds in both Dun Laoghaire and Sligo.

Some of these events are no longer pure sailing regattas and have become major public maritime festivals some are the biggest of all public staged events. In the past few seasons Ireland has hosted events such as La Solitaire du Figaro and the ISAF Dublin Bay 2012 Youth Worlds.

There is a lively domestic racing scene for both inshore and offshore sailing. A national sailing calendar of summer fixtures is published annually and it includes old favorites such as Sovereign's Cup, Calves Week, Dun Laoghaire to Dingle, All Ireland Sailing Championships as well as new events with international appeal such as the Round Britain and Ireland Race and the Clipper Round the World Race, both of which have visited Ireland.

The bulk of the work on running events though is carried out by the network of sailing clubs around the coast and this is mostly a voluntary effort by people committed to the sport of sailing. For example Wicklow Sailing Club's Round Ireland yacht race run in association with the Royal Ocean Racing Club has been operating for over 30 years. Similarly the international Cork Week regatta has attracted over 500 boats in past editions and has also been running for over 30 years.  In recent years Dublin Bay has revived its own regatta called Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta and can claim to be the country's biggest event with over 550 boats entered in 2009.

On the international stage Afloat carries news of Irish and UK interest on Olympics 2012, Sydney to Hobart, Volvo Ocean Race, Cowes Week and the Fastnet Race.

We're always aiming to build on our sailing content. We're keen to build on areas such as online guides on learning to sail in Irish sailing schools, navigation and sailing holidays. If you have ideas for our pages we'd love to hear from you. Please email us at [email protected]