Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

The Laser Radial Youth World Championship at Kingston, Ontario in Canada was something special as Laser designer Bruce Kirby, the man who transformed the world’s solo dinghy sailing, is Canadian. But it was also something special for Eve McMahon of…

Very few sailors can ever have experienced anything comparable to the elation of discovering that their racing pride-and-joy has been declared “Boat of the Week” from within the 498-boat fleet at Ireland’s biggest regatta. But this is what happened to…

Defending the title with the same boat in the biennial 270-mile Volvo Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race is a real challenge at a time when the cruiser-racer fleet is expanding with some very hot new designs. But Paul O’Higgins (Royal…

In some of the more compact cruiser-racers, the owner-skipper’s preferred role is as crew boss, and this is the approach of HYC Honorary Sailing Secretary Caroline Gore-Grimes on her family’s well-tested X 302 DUX. It’s an arrangement which worked a…

The Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race is now such a significant event that inevitably it attracts the involvement of professional and semi-professional talent. But so many boats sail determinedly within the Corinithian ideal that in effect they created an extra…

The Greystones-based Grand Soleil 44 Eleuthera (Frank Whelan) is a byword for enthusiasm, both for the dedication of her amateur crew in preparing the boat for the season, and in the way her owner/skipper and his top lieutenants lead them…

Andrew Craig of the Royal Irish Yacht Club’s very clearcut overall win with his J/109 Chimaera in the Scottish Series, incorporating the Scottish IRC Championship 2019, has been a superb demonstration of boat and logistics management, personnel selection, and good…

There were three McMahon family members from Howth racing in the Laser Radials at this year’s Irish Junior Championship at Crosshaven. But while youngest Jack had to be content with 13th overall, his cousin Eve was very much in improvement mode…

Dedicated Olympic solo sailor Finn Lynch (National Yacht Club) is “Sailor of the Month” for April on the strength of his closely-focused campaign towards qualifying for the 2020 Olympics. In three major international regattas during the first part of the…

Jamie McMahon (Howth Yacht Club), put in a convincing performance at the Irish Youth Championships at Royal Cork Yacht Club in the final weekend of April to emerge as Laser Radial overall champion, seeing off some determined challenges from a…

Lucy McCutcheon, Commodore and Team Sailing Captain of University College Dublin SC, is the Afloat.ie “Sailor of the Month (Team Racing) for March after her squad’s victory in very close racing in the Irish Universities Team Championship staged at Lough…

A fleet of 155 boats is a daunting prospect, even when they’re little Optimist dinghies. But in recent years young James Dwyer Matthews of Kinsale has shown increasing expertise in dealing with the special challenges such numbers entail. Now at…

Cork’s Rob and Peter O’Leary are the Afloat.ie “Sailors of the Month (Open)” for February with their Bronze Medals at the talent-studded Star Junior Worlds in Florida in the first week of the month. The unique attraction of the International…

Cruising and its organisations move at their own serene speed, and when Donal Walsh of Dungarvan received Irish Cruising’s supreme trophy - the Faulkner Cup - in February, it was recognition by his peers of an outstanding and seamanlike achievement…

When Pierce Purcell of Clarenbridge in Galway officially retired from the marine business on the 31st January, it by no means ended his association with boats, the sea and sailing. For his entire life has been devoted to helping others…

With his captaining of the successful Gonzaga College team in the inaugural Shanahan Cup raced at the Irish National Sailing School on January 16th, noted junior sailor Jack Fahy is the Afloat.ie “Sailor of the Month” for January 2019. Competing…