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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: Strandhill

Additional funding for a long-proposed National Surf Centre of Excellence in Strandhill has been welcomed, as the Sligo Champion reports.

Fáilte Ireland has approved an additional grant of €321,468 for the project in a move hailed as positive news for the town, an important hub for Ireland’s surfing community.

Funding of over €1.6 million was announced for construction of the project in 2018 but councillors heard in October last year that costs had risen due to inflation and pandemic-related issues.

Cllr Declan Bree, chair of the Strandhill Maritime Board, said: “The new centre will be a significant facility for the people of Strandhill and the surf coast on the Wild Atlantic Way and will certainly attract increasing numbers of visitors to the region.”

The Sligo Champion has more on the story HERE.

Published in Surfing

#Surfing - A black rubber roof is one of the unusual features of the winning design for a new maritime centre in Strandhill, as the Sligo Champion reports.

The vision for the new surfing and coastal community centre by London architects Manalo & White also includes large concrete panels around the perimeter with Celtic seascapes and surfing scenes by Barry Britton, whose known as much for his art as for his waveriding legacy – not least being father of women's surfing pioneer Easkey Britton.

A planning application is expected to be completed by the end of April with a view to having the €500,000 facility, which would replace the existing centre used by the local surf club and other groups, ready in time for next year's tourism season.

The Sligo Champion has more on the story HERE.

Published in Surfing

#CoastalNotes - The Irish Independent's Kim Bielenberg recently enjoyed the hospitality of the welcoming coastal community of Strandhill in Co Sligo, where seaweed, surfing and sleeping under the stars are some of the key attractions.

Strandhill is just one of the many seaside hamlets dotted along the Wild Atlantic Way, an initiative local businesses have been swift to latch on to.

But the town's entrepreneurs have long been at one with the ocean and the rugged beauty of the coastline, from the local seaweed bath – a Sligo coast tradition – to the Kiwi-run surfing school and the beach campsite that welcomes hundreds of campers every summer.

Meanwhile, that same coastline provided the inspiration for artists Tom Phelan's seascape, which featured in a recently closed exhibition in Dublin.

Independent.ie has a sample of one of his striking and evocative surfboard paintings, with straight lines and sweeping curves that care calming and sedate, but a rough surfaces that indicates some tussles with the waves.

More of these works can be found on Tom Phelan's website HERE.

Published in Coastal Notes

#Surfing - A café-owning couple with twin passions for cooking and surfing have turned their successful business into an equally successful cookbook.

As reported on Surfers Village, Jane and Myles Lamberth were recently featured on the UTV series James Nesbitt's Ireland, which paid a visit to their eatery Shells Café in Strandhill, Co Sligo - a part of Ireland that's become a mecca for surfers the world over.

The Lamberths opened the café in 2010 and its popularity quickly led to the publication last year of The Surf Café Cookbook, featuring recipes for some of their favourite dishes from the menu.

Already a hit in world surfing hotspots from California to South Africa to Australia, its expected to get a bigger boost this summer with large orders from hip US chains.

Surfers Village has more on the story HERE.

Published in Surfing
#SURFING - Ireland is set to field a team of Strandhill bodyboarders at the 12th ISA World Bodyboard Championships in Gran Canaria from next week.
The event will take place in the heavy slab waves of El Frontón and la Guancha at Galdar City from 30 November to 4 December 2011.
The competition also marks the first time that bodyboard-only teams from around the world will compete in  the Open Men (Prone), Open Women (Prone), Under 18 Men (Prone) and Open Drop Knee divisions.
See video of action from El Frontón in 2010 below:

#SURFING - Ireland is set to field a team of Strandhill bodyboarders at the 12th ISA World Bodyboard Championships in Gran Canaria from next week.

The event will take place in the heavy slab waves of El Frontón and la Guancha at Galdar City from 30 November to 4 December 2011.

The competition also marks the first time that bodyboard-only teams from around the world will compete in  the Open Men (Prone), Open Women (Prone), Under 18 Men (Prone) and Open Drop Knee divisions.

See video of action from El Frontón in 2010 below:

Published in Surfing

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]