Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

A beautifully restored traditional clinker-built Dublin Bay Mermaid One Design dinghy is now up for sale. Due to age and ill health, the owner has decided to part with this piece of sailing history. The sale includes a new set…

It is with deep sadness that we heard of Johnny Robinson's passing on Thursday at the age of 87. He had been involved with Clontarf Yacht and Boat Club for over 70 years and was its longest-serving member. Johnny was known…

Liam Shanahan Senr was widely known in the sailing community as a determined offshore racing and cruising owner-skipper and a pillar of the National Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire, both as a longtime Club Trustee and a racing and sea-going…

It’s not the first time that the organisers of the National Championships of Champions have found themselves playing footsie with volatile Autumn weather. Ten days ago, the National Junior Championship at Schull was cancelled due to southerly gales. And last…

They’ve been part of our sailing furniture for so long that you could be forgiven for thinking Ireland’s historic local classes might just quietly fade away through being barely noticed. But you’d be very much mistaken. 2023 has been a…

A Skerries Sailing Club trio won the Mermaid National Championship 2023 on home waters after a four-race squally championship concluded on Sunday.  Mark Boylan, Aileen Boylan and Colman Grimes, sailing number 177 'This is it', topped the 28-boat championships with…

After two races sailed, it's tight at the top of the leaderboard at the Mermaid National Championships at Skerries Sailing Club. First race winner Alan Ruigrok of Rush Sailing Club leads the 25-boat clinker fleet but is on the same…

After a somewhat disappointing turnout at last year's National Championships in Foynes, where Darragh McCormack completed his four in a row in his stunning boat Innocence, the Mermaid Class is bracing itself for a resurgence of competitive sailing in Skerries…

The Dublin Bay Mermaids only sailed two races at Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta, with Skerries visitors Paul, Frank and Chloe Browne in Cara II coming out on top in the eight-boat fleet.  The Royal Irish's Jill, sailed by Paul Smith, Patrick…

In July, a new classic boat/yacht parade is planned for Dun Laoghaire Harbour. This event is being arranged in association with Dun Laoghaire's Coastival Festival, a week-long series of events and activities that culminates in the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta.…

As Afloat previously reported, the Dublin Bay Mermaid National Championships were held on the 2nd to 6th of August on the Shannon Estuary at Foynes. 16 boats took to the start line with many favourites of old competing for the…

Commodore John Paul Buckley welcomed all competitors and their families to Foynes for the Dublin Bay Mermaid championship, Paul Browne, President of the Mermaid Sailing Association, said a few words on their behalf, and Scorie Walls, OOD, did the briefing. Conditions…

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…

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…

Having sailed in combined races with Squibs in the 2021 season, the DBSC Mermaid Class had its prizegiving with the Squib class in the National Yacht Club last Friday, 25th February. The 17ft clinker-built dinghy designed by J. B. Kearney…

Now hear this, all you sailors or rowers of Greencastle Yawls, Dublin Bay Water Wags, Foyle Punts, International 12s, Shannon One Designs, Castlehaven Ettes, Strangford Lough Clippers, Coastal Hobbler Rowing Skiffs, Dublin Bay Mermaids, Mayfly-Fishing Lakeboats, IDRA 14s, Ballyholme Insects,…