Northern Ireland Sailing & Boating News

East Down Yacht Club welcomes Impala and Sonata keelboats to a two-day combined racing event on the 27th and 28th of May. The club is situated near Killyleagh on the west side of Strangford Lough on a nine-acre site, including…

UK Sailmakers Ireland Talks Series Begins at Ballyholme Yacht Club
6th February 2023 UK Sailmakers Ireland
Irish Laser ace Liam Glynn will be on home waters when he and UK Sailmakers Ireland manager Barry Hayes deliver the first of a series of UK Sails countrywide talks beginning in Ballyholme Yacht Club on Belfast Lough later this month.…

St. Ayles Skiff Racing at Skiffiefest 2023 Returns to Strangford Lough This Summer
5th February 2023 Coastal Rowing
A country park doesn’t readily come to mind as a venue for a weekend of St.Ayles Skiff racing, but Delamont lies on the shores of Strangford Lough near Killyleagh and has proved an ideal base for this activity in the…

Ladies That Launch: A New Women in Sailing Initiative is Underway at East Antrim Boat Club
4th February 2023 Women in Sailing
A new ladies' sailing initiative at East Antrim Boat Club on Larne Lough in Northern Ireland got underway at the end of January when Ladies that Launch dusted off the wetsuits and had a fun afternoon trying to find the wind.…

Silver for Britain's Sills in Dramatic Olympic Circuit Opener
31st January 2023 Paris 2024 Olympic Sailing
British windsurfer Sam Sills scooped a silver medal in a thrilling finale to the first Olympic class regatta of 2023. Sills, 29, from Launceston in Cornwall, dominated the opening round of the iQFOiL Games in Lanzarote but had to settle…
Promoted

North Sails Powers New Water-Ballasted JPK 1030 "Coquine" in Bangor
30th January 2023 North Sails Ireland
Alan Hannon's beautiful North Sails-powered "Coquine" has just taken to the seas in Bangor. She is a brand new JPK 1030 design from the JPK yard in France - a not-so-little sister to Paul O'Higgins' Dun Laoghaire-based all-conquering JPK 1080…

Local Insurer’s Support for Larne RNLI Helps Build Community Resilience
26th January 2023 RNLI Lifeboats
NFU Mutual agents and staff in East Antrim recently nominated Larne RNLI to receive a donation of more than £3,000 from its national £1.92m Agency Giving Fund. The leading rural insurer has launched this fund, now in its third year,…

RYA Northern Ireland Announces OnBoard Development Day in March
26th January 2023 RYA Northern Ireland
RYA Northern Ireland have launched an OnBoard Development Day which will be hosted by the South Lakes Leisure Centre in Craigavon on Saturday 11 March 2023. OnBoard, RYA’s grassroots programme, is relatively new in Northern Ireland. Its aim is to…

The Department of Defence will continue to provide funding to Sail Training Ireland for three more years from this year, 2023. This funding will provide sail training to young persons from disadvantaged backgrounds. This funding is subject to compliance with…

Heritage Foyle Punt to be Built by Northern Ireland Student in Basque Boatyard
25th January 2023 Historic Boats
The Portaferry and Strangford Trust (PAST) is a charity, based in Portaferry at the mouth of Strangford Lough in Northern Ireland, which aims to promote an awareness of the rich maritime heritage and natural environment of the Lough and the…

Loughs Agency Retains Existing Tag Allocation in Effort to Conserve Atlantic Salmon
21st January 2023 Angling
The Loughs Agency will retain salmon carcass tag numbers for licence holders for the 2023 season in line with the policy followed in the previous two years. Based on the information collected in 2022, a continual fall in salmon numbers…

Bangor Waterfront Development will receive £40 million in funding as part of the Belfast Region City Deal. Ards and North Down Borough Council welcomed the news a year after the UK and NI Executive Ministers signed the first-ever City Deal…

A County Down swimmer has broken a world record and claimed two gold medals at the ice swimming world championships, reports The Belfast Telegraph. Grace McLaughlin from Bangor defied freezing temperatures to triumph at the International Ice Swimming Association’s (IISA)…

It’s amazing what can be achieved if you put your mind to it. In September 2021 Rob Espey of Ballyholme Yacht Club bought a Waszp and at that time, his was the only one at the Club. Having a vision…

Time was in sailing when the Golden Jubilee of any One Design Class was a matter of extra-special celebration. But it’s now more than fifty years since glassfibre construction became mainstream. Thus instead of fleets dominated by timber boats which…

First Northern Ireland Boats Enter July's Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta
9th January 2023 Volvo Regatta
The first Northern Ireland boats to enter the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta in July are Stuart Cranston’s Ker 32 from Strangford Lough Yacht Club and John Minnis’s Final Call II, an Archambault A35 from Royal Ulster on Belfast Lough. By…