Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Classic clinker-built wooden dinghies can mean a lot of maintenance work as they mature. Betty Armstrong's recent stories on Afloat.ie of restoration projects on some of the almost-forgotten 14ft Ballyholme Insects in the North, will have been an evocative reminder…

The unique and Centenary-celebrating una-rigged 18ft Shannon One Designs and their Association were already recognised in their special achievement by being co-winners (with Lough Ree YC) of the MG Motor “Club of the Year” award for 2022. But while it…

Did we really manage it? Did we really cram all those major special and routine regular sailing events into the one season of 2022? And all that despite its three main months afloat experiencing decidedly mixed weather? And also despite…

For most of their hundred years, the unique 18-foot Shannon One Designs have kept themselves to themselves in their secret world of Ireland’s great lakes. But in July 2022, they went unprecedently public with their Centenary celebrated in two special…

The unique 18ft Shannon One-Designs have lived through some decidedly mixed times in Ireland during their hundred years of setting the sailing pace on the great lakes of our lordly river. And the two special Centenary Regattas at their main…

When we remember that in the class’s early days, the hundred-year-old Shannon One Designs were accustomed to cramming much of their racing into the first half of August with the two traditional Regatta Weeks at Lough Ree and Lough Derg,…

This Centenary Year of the award-winning Shannon One Design Class seems to be a happening of infinite elasticity. For some of the keenest, it began with the raw weather of May, when there were regattas for a determined few at…

Being involved in Shannon One Design racing in a normal year is a State of Mind as much as it’s a matter of active sport afloat in a highly individualistic 18ft una-rigged open boat, a hard-sailed work of art that…

When the weather patterns conspire to provide wet or rugged sailing on Ireland’s sea coasts, the shrewd mariner heads for the inland sea that is Lough Ree, which has been geographically measured with some elegant 19th Century science as being…

You need stamina afloat and ashore to get the best of Shannon One Design Racing, and already it’s clear that that the class – with Philip Mayne as Captain/Chairman and Naomi Algeo as Honorary Secretary - will be looking for…

While the sailing programme during the past two years has managed to be played out afloat in a truncated form whenever changing regulations permitted, anything which involved a significant shoreside element of socialising was either cancelled completely, or else moth-balled…

The Afloat.ie-administered “Sailing Club of the Year” award has been running continuously and successfully since 1979, yet in all its 43 years of honouring outstanding achievement across a wide range of criteria by Ireland’s diverse and nationally-spread yacht and sailing…

There are highly individualistic One Design Classes. And then there are the 1922-founded Shannon One Designs. They’re in a league of their own. And they’ll be launching their Hundred Year Programme for 2022 with a Centenary Dinner in the National…

When a Centenary arrives, most of those closely involved tend to focus on the history they’re celebrating, whether it’s a club or a boat class or whatever. Sometimes they become immersed in potentially challenging and even contentious projects like re-enactments,…

Many people who visit Ireland's sea coasts under sail are unaware that they're really only seeing half of the story. For the unseen inland Ireland is a vast watery place of myriad lakes and winding waterways, so much so that…

When a yacht is one hundred years old, it might be normal to celebrate the event, perhaps by breaking open a bottle of champagne with a few close friends, or having a small celebratory article printed in ‘Afloat.ie’, or even…