Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

After a year in the planning, Royal Cork Yacht Club has launched a new offering for its youth sailors for 2021. The pathway is intended to complement our existing entry points into sailing in the club across dinghies and keelboats.…

They say that a good junior sail training programme will gradually introduce the young people to an increasingly demanding range of experiences afloat. But we doubt if the instructors in Santa Cruz in California at the weekend had had something…

The Royal Yachting Association has decided that in light of the current Covid-19 situation it is in the best interests of all parties to postpone its 2021 British Youth Sailing National Championships. The regatta, the UK’s premier youth racing event,…

Five young sailors have been given a unique chance to boost their training and skills after they were awarded funding from the Mary Peters Trust. The Trust aims to help aspiring young athletes, whatever their sport or social background, to…

Seventeen single-handers took advantage of a favourable day on Sunday last (20th) to hold a Christmas Regatta at East Antrim Boat Club on Larne Lough before the shut down in Northern Ireland on Boxing Day. The fleet consisted of two…

Ballyholme Yacht Club on Belfast Lough will host the British Topper Nationals, scheduled for early August next year, a few days after the World Championships in Cork Harbour. With the Irish Nationals in Northern Ireland at Strangford Lough Yacht Club in…

Thirty young sailors managed a final outing at Ballyholme yesterday (December 22nd) before Covid 19 restrictions would put paid to their activities at the Club for six weeks. And the event was blessed with a bright sunny day, albeit with…

Christmas has come early for 12-year-old Rory Pollard, who has been awarded a brand new boat by the John Merricks Sailing Trust. Rory, from Whitehead and a junior member of County Antrim Yacht Club, is the only sailor from Northern…

Saturday 12th December saw an early Christmas present for Ballyholme Yacht Club junior sailors as racing returned for the first time since the end of the summer. A steady 10-12 knots from the West allowed a windward-leeward course to be…

The highlight of Royal Cork Yacht Club's junior sailing laying up supper conducted by Zoom at the weekend was the presentation of the Club's Pyewacket Trophy to the junior sailor who best represented the RCYC in 2020. Ben O’Shaughnessy was awarded…

A young Belfast Lough woman has been announced the winner of the national competition to design the official 2021 t-shirt for the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust, the charity that has continued to support her during the pandemic. Alysia, 20, has…

Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy is quiet this weekend after the Royal Yachting Association’s last-minute cancelation of the UK Youth Nationals. The RYA says it made the decision “to safeguard sailors and their families, volunteers, race officials and event…

More than 30 youth laser sailors from 10 clubs across Northern Ireland travelled to Cushendall Sailing and Boating Club for the RYA Northern Ireland Performance selection weekend. The event, which took place on 10 and 11 October, saw the young…

Way back in the mid -70s the well-known and recently retired Bangor sailor who was Chair of Irish Sailing's Racing Rules & Appeals Board, Ron Hutchieson, introduced Laser dinghies to Ballyholme Yacht Club and persuaded the now SailCoach head, Trevor…

Fifteen-year-old sailor Timothy Long spent his summer on a 1,600 nautical mile anti-clockwise voyage around the British coast. Now he has broken the record of Tom Webb, who sailed around Britain aged 17 in 2011. Timothy, from Aylesbury, has become…

Youth sailing prospect Griff Kelleher from the Royal Cork Yacht Club gives a glimpse of the world of yacht racing from a dinghy sailor’s perspective, and how the experience can make you a better sailor all round… In sailing, we…