Kinsale Marina Will Become 'Unusable' Unless Silting Issue is Addressed

 One of the country’s leading marinas will become unusable for keelboats unless urgent action is taken to address increasing silting in the harbour area.

Matthias Hellstern, Commodore of the Kinsale Yacht Club said that the issue had become much more serious in the last few years and the rate of silting in Kinsale Harbour seemed to be increasing.

“During Covid there was obviously a lot less activity at the marina and in the harbour in general because of the restrictions. It has been happening over a number of years but seems to be getting much worse now. It is something that we really need to address urgently,” he said.

The 200 berth marina brings in some 3,500 visiting boat nights to the town every year contributing an estimated €525,000 to the local economy according to the yacht club’s own estimates. A non-profit organisation run by volunteers, it is one of only three yacht clubs in the country that owns its own marina, the others being Howth Yacht Club and the Royal Cork Yacht Club in Crosshaven.

“We have visitors coming from France, the UK, Spain, Germany, the USA and all around Ireland,” said Matthias Hellstern, “and we run also run national and international sailing championships which we could not do without the marina facility.”

The KYC is due to host the upcoming Squib UK National Championships, Dragon Gold Cup and also hosts the biennial Sovereign’s Cup, but silting is already causing problems for events in Kinsale.

“We hosted the April Spring series recently and we were having yachts running aground at low tide,” said Matthias, “they simply couldn’t get out of the marina and obviously that’s a serious problem.”

Mr Hellstern said that already about 25% of the marina was not useable for keelboats at low tide.

We have to at all times ensure Kinsale continues being useable for leisure and also commercial and fishing, it’s all three. The Kinsale Yacht Club will help out with a survey that needs to be done on the silting and I would expect that the county council will also chip in if we can to help out in their endeavours to get that done as soon as possible.”