Dublin Bay Old Gaffers
This weekend sees ancient gaff-rigged and other craft of multiple vintages gathering at Poolbeg Yacht and Boat Club in Ringsend in the heart of Dublin Port, within sight of some of the most modern ships afloat. It’s the 60th Anniversary…
Updated Programme for Dublin Bay Old Gaffers’ 60th Anniversary Weekend at Poolbeg Later This Month
4th May 2023 Dublin Bay Old Gaffers
The Dublin Bay Old Gaffers Association have updated the programme of events for their 60th anniversary weekend at Poolbeg Yacht and Boat Club in Dublin Port later this month. Booking in commences Friday 26 May at 4pm ahead of the…
Poolbeg & Baltimore: Ireland’s Classics And Tradboats Have Demanding Choices In Making Best Use Of 2023 Programme
27th April 2023 Historic Boats
Ten years ago, when the Old Gaffers Association’s Dublin visit was a highlight of their Golden Jubilee Cruise-in-Company, it was a very crowded and festive series of events based around Poolbeg Yacht & Boat Club in late May 2013 that…
’200 Years of the Coastguard in Ireland’ Lecture Hosted by Dublin Bay Old Gaffers at Poolbeg Y&BC This Thursday
18th February 2023 Dublin Bay Old Gaffers
The Dublin Bay Old Gaffers Association will host an illustrated lecture next week by Joe Ryan reflecting on the coastguard in Ireland over the last 200 years. Joe spent 12 years at sea as a radio officer responsible for the…
Fifty Skiffs, River Outriggers, Kayaks, Canoes, Dragon Boats and Currachs Smash 1,000km Target to Eaise €20,000 for RNLI Lifeboats and the Irish Underwater Search & Recovery Unit
31st January 2023 Currachs
The All In A Row Liffey Challenge was held in early December on the capital’s River Liffey with the challenge for the rowers to smash a 1,000km target in eight hours. Fifty skiffs, kayaks, canoes, dragon boats and currachs were…
Cruising Club of America Blue Water Medallist Paddy Barry and Dublin Bay Old Gaffers Association President Adrian Spence have taken on the Arctic cruising challenge in a variety of craft over the years. But in 2022, they combined forces to…
Dublin Bay Old Gaffers Association Holds 2022 AGM at Poolbeg In Dublin Port
21st November 2022 Dublin Bay Old Gaffers
The Dublin Bay Old Gaffers Association is now the central organisation for the OGA in Ireland, following the absorption of the Northern Ireland branch, which supplied the re-elected President, Adrian "Stu" Spence. His home port is in Ringhaddy Sound in…
Nobody knows how maritime researcher and historian Cormac Lowth does it all. But while most of us are still absorbing his recently-launched encyclopaedic book about the once hugely active Ringsend sailing trawler fleet, he has been re-focusing on another of…
Ringsend Sailing Trawlers: Cormac Lowth's New Book is Launched at Poolbeg Yacht and Boat Club
15th October 2022 Wavelength Podcast
“Broken hoops on the shore; at the land a maze of dark cunning nets; farther away chalk scrawled backdoors and on the higher beach a drying line with two crucified shirts. Ringsend: wigwams of brown steersman and master mariners. Human…
It is said that you have to be prepared to wait until the 15th July in the average season before you can contemplate a successful venture into the most heavily-iced parts of East Greenland. Whether or not global warming has…
Vintage Dublin Yawl Ainmara Celebrates Centenary+Ten With Return To Ringsend Birthplace
6th July 2022 Historic Boats
The 36ft yawl Ainmara, designed and built in 1912 by the talented self-taught naval architect John B Kearney in Murphy’s Boatyard beside his family’s home in Ringsend, played a key role in Irish sailing north and south until 2018. She…
Weather Cancels Dublin Bay Old Gaffers Regatta at Poolbeg on the River Liffey
7th June 2022 Dublin Bay Old Gaffers
The Dublin Bay Old Gaffers (DBOGA) two-day regatta at Poolbeg Yacht and Boat Club on the River Liffey was also a casualty of the weekend's nor'easter. Disappointingly, the planned Parade of Sail on the capital's river had to be cancelled…
Dubliner Paul Keogh Receives Top Honour For Voluntary Work With Community Project in Traditional Boats
8th May 2022 Dublin Bay Old Gaffers
The saga of the building and sailing of the traditional Galway Hooker Naomh Cronan by Clondalkin Community in west Dublin goes back nearly thirty years. And though the story has regularly featured in Afloat.ie,the various lockdowns had made it difficult…
These past few days have been purest serendipity for historic Irish boatbuilders. Just two days after the 1926-vintage West Cork-built Limerick ketch Ilen was celebrated beside the River Thames in London on Wednesday, the 1937 Tyrrell of Arklow 43ft ketch…
Superstar Jockey Rachael Blackmore: Is She Descended from a Ringsend Fishing Family?
15th April 2022 River Liffey
The possibility that stellar jockey Rachael Blackmore, the winner of the Grand National in 2021 and the Cheltenham Gold Cup this year, might just be descended from a noted Dublin nautical family has emerged from traditional boat enthusiast and maritime…
Dublin Bay Old Gaffers to Hear Tale of Báidín, a Chameleon Nesting Dinghy
22nd February 2022 Dublin Bay Old Gaffers
In the latest Dublin Bay Old Gaffers Zoom talk Mark Sweetman will recount his search for a nesting dinghy design to suit his needs and how he ended up building one himself. For a long time, Mark wanted a hard tender…
