Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Since Victorian times until about thirty years ago, Queens Parade in Bangor was a thriving seaside thoroughfare with shops, hotels, a cinema, and ice cream vendors all colourfully set in a row, attracting hundreds to that part of the town…

Bangor, Northern Ireland sailor Mikey Ferguson and Finnish airline pilot Ari Hussela finished the famous 4350-mile coffee route ocean race, the Transat Jacques Vabre offshore race, from Le Havre to Salvador da Bahia in Brazil, on 15th November. But not…

Nobody seems yet to have nominated the already very special 2020 as The Year of the Sailing Club, or more accurately as The Year of the Irish Sailing Club. So here in Afloat.ie we’re just going to do that very…

Key Yachting Ltd has announced that four-time Olympian Mark Mansfield, has been appointed the representative in Ireland for their four ranges; J Boats, Grand Soleil, Nautitech Catamarans, and Tofinou. Key Yachting is the sole agents for these performance brands in…

Irish Sailing’s annual Youth National Championships will include skiff racing for the first time when they take place next year on 16-19 April at Howth Yacht Club, Dublin. This year for the first time Irish Sailing has invited the 29er…

Irish sailing fans can look forward to seeing two Irish teams bid for an Olympic berth at the 49er World Championships live in New Zealand next month thanks to new streaming technology announced by the international class association. As Afloat…

A ‘Town’ Regatta in Bangor first saw the light of day a century ago and Belfast Lough will, from 25th till 28th June next year, see a repeat of the 2018 reincarnation as Bangor Town Regatta, a four-day multi-class event…

Two juvenile seals named Ariel and Merida after the Disney princesses are part of a novel marine research project using the latest technology to record and understand harbour seals’ behaviour. In a first for Northern Ireland, the Exploris Aquarium in…

A brisk northerly breeze met the Topper sailors on Saturday afternoon for a cold day of sailing in what was otherwise perfect sailing weather for the fourth week of the Charles Hurst Jaguar Land Rover Ballyholme Yacht Club Junior Icebreaker…

A group of young people have joined together to have their say on sailing and boating in Northern Ireland. The RYANI Youth Forum group, which is being piloted for one year, has been formed as part of an initiative to…

Ards and North Down Borough Council paid £36,000 to scrap an abandoned fishing trawler in Ballyhalbert harbour on the Ards Peninsula writes Betty Armstrong. Ballyhalbert is a small seaside village on the Irish Sea coast of the Ards Peninsula at…

The Loughs Agency has organised two morning seminars around the theme of maritime heritage in the Foyle and Carlingford areas later this month. The first will take place at Greencastle Golf Club next Friday 22 November from 9.30am to 12.30pm,…

As you make your passage west through Belfast Harbour to the Marina you probably don’t realise that on your port side near the cruise liner terminal is gem of a wildlife sanctuary just a hundred metres away writes Betty Armstrong.…

Strangford Lough Yacht Club that celebrates its 85th anniversary this weekend is celebrating its shortlisting as a finalist in the 2020 RYA Club of the year competition writes Betty Armstrong. As Afloat reported earlier, two northern clubs have been selected as…

boot Düsseldorf will present itself from 18 to 26 January 2020 in a sporty new look. The overriding aim of the redesigned layout for the event is to make visit planning even better. “In the context of our arrangements for…

Residents around Strangford Lough were baffled at the weekend of a mysterious ‘humming’ sound heard around its waters, as the Belfast Telegraph reports. The droning noise can be faintly detected in a video posted by Ian McConnell on Twitter, who…