Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

When John Harington's IMX 38 Excession made the Dun Laoghaire Harbour startline on Saturday morning, he became the first Northern Ireland yacht to compete in ISORA racing in many years,  The enthusiastic Royal Ulster Yacht Club crew from Bangor on…

Coastguard units from Coleraine and Ballycastle were tasked to rescue a man in his 70s who had fallen in a cave close to the Giant’s Causeway on Friday (7 August). The casualty had sustained a knee injury and was being…

Two adults and a child were rescued this morning (Sunday 9 August) by Larne RNLI after their small RIB broke down near Magheramore in Co Antrim. The volunteer crew launched the smaller in-shore lifeboat, Terry, at 11.05am and made their…

An unusual visitor to Glenarm Marina in County Antrim recently was the rowing boat of the GB Row Challenge. After what must have been an uncomfortable time lying in the open in Glenarm Harbour in a north-westerly, the GB Row…

In the run-up to the return of Topper and Laser dinghy events, RYA Northern Ireland has arranged a series of Open Pathway training events during this month. The RYANI Open Pathway Training (OPT) is aimed primarily at those sailors who…

As lockdown eased in Northern Ireland, Strangford Sailing Club’s Commodore Tony McLaughlin was busy working with his committee members on a plan of how to safely reopen in line with UK Government advice. He explains the measures the club took…

A spate of boat vandalism at Newcastle Harbour in Co Down is putting lives at risk, a former coastguard chief claims. John Lowry told the Belfast Telegraph that a number of boats in the Northern Ireland harbour have been damaged…

Brian Black, the multi-media communicator, Arctic sailor, and environmentalist, died today (Tuesday) after a tragic accident at noon when his car plunged off the pier at his home village of Strangford in County Down. Originally best-known as a presenter with…

 Ballyholme Yacht Club‘s ‘Regatta’ last weekend went a long way in these ‘new normal’ times, to fulfil the usual criteria for a standard regatta, but minus the visitors and the usual socialising and tea and buns afterwards. It was a…

Portrush RNLI’s inshore lifeboat launched to the rescue of a 50-year-old woman who fell into the water while with a coasteering group at Dunseverick near the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland yesterday afternoon (Saturday 1 August). The volunteer crew applied…

Recently the Brompton inflatable goose featured in a story about open sea swimmers near Bangor on Belfast Lough. Now round the corner from Brompton, the Helen’s Baywatch swimmers have a real ‘Goose’ to swim with! The reddish-brown female eider duck…

Young sailors and windsurfers in Northern Ireland could follow in the wake of Donaghadee’s Charlie O’Malley by applying for a junior pathway boat or board in the final year of the RYA’s partnership with the John Merricks Sailing Trust. Brand…

Royal Ulster Yacht Club members John and Sally McKee played a crucial part in their motor cruiser in a dramatic incident on the Shannon waterway last Saturday. A private cruiser from Limerick was making a passage northwards on Lough Ree…

Ballyholme Yacht Club on Belfast Lough has taken a big step and will hold a two-day club regatta this weekend, (1st and 2nd August), for members only, but it will be an adapted ‘regatta’, run to the new normal within…

Cork Harbour Boat manufacturer Safehaven Marine undertook an 800nm four-day cruise in Thunder Child II to Scotland, living off the boat to visit a place called the Gulf of Corryvreckan. A pretty wild yet beautiful place writes Thunderchild's skipper, Frank…

It’s not often a record-breaker visits Bangor but Safehaven Marine’s Managing Director Frank Kowalski, who set the Round Ireland and Rockall Record in the original 17 metre XSV 17 demonstrator Thunder Child in 2017, brought his striking yellow hulled Thunder…