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Sailor of the Month
Stephen Tudor’s J/109 Sgrech in flying form off the “Snowdon Riviera”
In a year in which one of our 'Sailor of the Month' awards went to America’s irrepressible George David for his fabulous overall victory in the Volvo Round Ireland Race 2016 in Rambler 88, we see no reason at all…
Johnny Durcan is a lone star of the Laser class, but eight days ago he showed himself well able to become All-Ireland Junior Champion sailing two-handed in the TR 3.6 in Schull.
When one of the most hectic and important weekends of major championships in the Irish sailing calendar occurs precisely in the first two days of October, it’s easy to forget that September 2016 didn’t actually end until midnight on Friday.…
Olympic silver medalist Annalise Murphy is Afloat.ie 'Sailor of the Month' for August
A world-beating performance in the Rio Olympics, with a Silver Medal convincingly taken in the final excruciatingly tense double-scoring Medals Race, has elevated the National YC’s Annalise Murphy to global sailing superstardom. The final two countdown months to this great…
Round the World Irish sailing couple Myra Reid and Paraic O'Maolriada
These days when nearly every event of sailing significance seems to require a wave of publicity beforehand and a veritable tidal wave of that same publicity when it’s under way, it’s like a breath of fresh air when people just…
Ewan McMahon won Laser Radial youth silver on Dublin Bay
The conditions for the KBC Laser Radial Worlds in Dublin Bay could be tough. Not because the weather was severe, but because the wind kept taking off just when everyone hoped they’d settled into some good racing. Frustration takes it…
The crew of Joker 2 pictured in Crosshaven, winners of the inaugural Beaufort Cup
It was a real light-bulb moment when the initial notion of the brilliant idea which became the Beaufort Cup first surfaced. The concept of a series-within-a-series, a special programme for offshore racers crewed at least 50% by members of the…
Dave Cullen's J/109 Euro Car Parks
While the Volvo Round Ireland Race 2016 was the most international ever seen, some of the keenest racing was among the Irish boats in a fleet of such quality that just to secure a class win was to have made…
Rambler 88 skipper George David
There was something otherworldly and very special about the mighty silver bullet from the moment she arrived in Ireland, berthing quietly in Dun Laoghaire in the countdown to the Volvo Round Ireland Race at Wicklow on June 18th. George David’s…
Damian Foxall, Round Ireland record breaker
When three MOD 70s swept through the starting line at Wicklow on Saturday June 18th for the Volvo Round Ireland Race, so much work behind the scenes had gone into bringing this very special trio to Ireland’s premier offshore racing…
Dara O’Malley (in connacht T-shirt ) and his crew in on their Hunter 707 Seaword afte rtheir overall victory in the Silvers Marine Scottish Series at Tarbert this week
For the second month running, we have been able to draw on the categorisaton of Ireland’s sailors as either Olympic or non-Olympic in order to provide two “Sailors of the Month” in a way which accurately reflects the diversity of…
Round Ireland Record Breaker John Ryan at the wheel of his 'Team Hibernia' 100–mph powerboat
With his splendid achievement on Sunday of chopping six hours off the established Round Ireland powerboat record time, John Ryan is acclaimed as May’s Powerboat “Sailor of the Month” with a breakthrough which could stand for quite some time. Ryan…
Finn Lynch at the start of his “impossible Odyssey” in Dun Laoghaire in June 2015. He was to suffer many setbacks and frustrations before finally securing the Olympic Laser place on Wednesday May 18th 2016
Finn Lynch (20) of County Carlow is the Afloat.ie Olympic “Sailor of the Month” for May, following his arduous and often lonely journey to succeed in taking over Ireland’s already-secured place in the International Laser Class in the 2016 Olympics…
Shane McCarthy Is 'Sailor Of The Month' For April
Shane McCarthy of Greystones is the Afloat.ie Sailor of the Month (non-Olympic) for April following his stunning overall win in the GP 14 Worlds in Barbados. McCarthy was already on a roll after winning the British Opens in August last…
Ryan Seaton & Matt McGvern of Belfast Lough on their way to Gold at Palma in April
As the 2016 Olympic Sailing campaign builds up to its climax in Rio in August, Afloat.ie has agreed that until the Olympiad is over, our Sailor of the Month contenders will automatically be considered under two basic categories: Olympics and…
After Saturday’s race (seen here), RORC Admiral Andy McIrvine’s First 40 La Reponse (42N) – with America’s Cup crewmen on board – looked to have it in the bag from Conor Phelan’s Jump Juice (2007). But in the final race sailed in extreme conditions, Jump Juice roared into the win and the overall lead.
April has come upon us with so many podium positions suddenly taken by Irish sailors in major events that you could have been forgiven for thinking that our usual April 1st specials had been allowed to run on for a…
Alan Rountree of Wicklow, seen in the Azores in the summer of 2015 during his Faulkner Cup-winning cruise from Ireland. His voyage home single-handed experienced three days of severe storm.
At February 19th’s AGM of the Irish Cruising Club, Alan Rountree of Wicklow was awarded two trophies of great distinction independently of each other. The ICC’s East Coast group nominated him for the Donegan Memorial Cup, which is for an…