Menu

Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

A Sigma 33 One Design keelboat racing on Dublin Bay Photo: AfloatA Sigma 33 One Design keelboat racing on Dublin Bay Photo: Afloat

Displaying items by tag: DBSC

Tim and Richard Goodbody's J109 White Mischief was the winner of a fine turnout of ten boats in Dublin Bay Sailing Club's IRC One Thursday night AIB Summer Series.

Light southerly winds with occasional bursts of fresh energy from numerous rain clouds over Dublin Bay permitted a full programme of races for the club. 

Finishing one minute behind White Mischief on corrected time in the strong fleet was Fintan Cairns's Mills 31 Raptor. Third was Colin Byrne's XP33 Bon Exemple.

As the top DBSC performer in IRC One at this month's Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta, Goodbody's top form continues as last night's result puts the Royal Irish Yacht Club boat top of the overall Thursday series. 

Full results in all DBSC classes are below.

Published in DBSC
Tagged under

Dublin Bay Sailing Club's (DBSC) Saturday racing was cancelled today due to a high wind forecast.

Despite the flat sea state, westerly winds were gusting to over 35 mph at Dun Laoghaire

Published in DBSC

Olympian Annalise Murphy and her crew were the winners of a breezy Water Wag race at Dun Laoghaire Harbour this evening.

Dublin Bay Sailing Club race officer Tadhg Donnelly set a three-round windward/leeward course for the Water Wags in a westerly 14-22 knot breeze.

Due to the squally conditions, the Wags all carried one reef. 

The race officer abandoned the first race after the first lap when the majority of boats rounded the leeward to starboard instead of to port.

The race was restarted 20 minutes later, and all bar 2 of the 20 boats had a clear start.

There was an individual recall, but the two OCS boats failed to return.

Wag Class Captain David Williams, sailing Dipper no. 48, capsized at the windward mark on the final round. (See photo sequence of the righting of Dipper below by Brendan Briscoe)

Water Wag Class Captain David Williams, sailing Dipper no. 48, capsized at the windward mark

Water Wag Class Captain David Williams, sailing Dipper no. 48, capsized at the windward mark

Water Wag Class Captain David Williams, sailing Dipper no. 48, capsized at the windward mark

Water Wag Class Captain David Williams, sailing Dipper no. 48, capsized at the windward mark

Results: 
1. No. 41 Mollie, Annalise Murphy 
2. No. 38 Swift, Guy & Jackie Kilroy
3. No. 52 Puffin, Seán & Heather Craig

Published in DBSC
Tagged under

The strong northwesterly winds that caused the cancellation of both the 2.4mR and the 29er National Championships at Dun Laoghaire this morning have also led to the scrubbing of racing in all classes of this afternoon's Dublin Bay Sailing Club programme. 

Published in DBSC

John Treanor's new J112e "ValenTina" from the National Yacht Club debuted on the Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) race track last night and won her Cruisers Zero IRC division.

Four boats raced in the light air Thursday night fixture – the last before next week's 375-boat Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta – with Sean Lemass's First 40 Prima Forte second and Michelle Farrell's First 40.7, Tsunami third.

The DBSC victory adds to an auspicious start to the 2023 season for Treanor and his new 36-footer, that has already seen a win in Key Yachting’s J Cup at Hamble in the UK and a second at last week's Sovereign's Cup in Kinsale. Valentia will compete in an exciting 11-boat VDLR Cruisers Zero class in next Thursday's regatta, where five of the fleet will be visitors to the Bay.

All DBSC results are below

Published in DBSC
Tagged under

Tim Pearson's Little Tern was Wednesday evening's Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) Water Wag race winner at Dun Laoghaire Harbour.

The fixture was a handicap race with seven staggered starts run by Race Officer Brian Mathews. 

The wind was variable, with an average of force two.

The results were

1. No. 36, Little Tern, Tim Pearson
2. No. 19, Shindilla, Judy O’Beirne
3. No. 15, Moosmie, John O’Driscoll

Published in DBSC
Tagged under

Royal St. George's Jimmy Fischer's Billy Whizz was the winner of Saturday's scratch Race 17 in the Beneteau 211 class of the AIB DBSC Summer Series on Dublin Bay.

Joe Smyth's Yikes from the Royal Irish took second, with Pat Shannon's Beeswing in third place in medium southerly winds on the Bay. 

Overall, Fischer continues to lead the ten-boat DBSC fleet on 12 points from Smyth, with Andrew Bradley's Chinook, also from the RIYC, in third place.

Results from all DBSC classes are below.

 

Published in DBSC
Tagged under

Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) yacht racing was cancelled on the Bay this evening despite decent sailing breeze.

A heavy sea mist brought visibility down to less than 100 metres this afternoon, forcing DBSC Race officers to fly 'N over A' as visibility became very poor at Dun Laoghaire Harbour and across the Bay.

Published in DBSC
Tagged under

DBSC Water Wag Race Officer Harry Gallagher set a windward/leeward course of three rounds in a WNW wind, initially gusting 16 knots, then dropping to an average of eight knots.

Twenty-three boats started, and Seán Craig, the weekend winner of the GP Munster Championships on Tralee Bay, maintained his current form and led from the start, tacking on to port on the gun and clearing the fleet.

Results were:
1. No. 52 Puffin, Seán & Heather Craig
2. No. 38 Swift, Guy & Jackie Kilroy
3. No. 15 Moosmie, John O’Driscoll & Shirley Gilmore

Published in DBSC
Tagged under

Leslie Parnell's First 34.7, Black Velvet was the winner of Thursday night's (June 15th) Class Two IRC AIB DBSC Summer Series racing on Dublin Bay.

The Royal Irish yacht finished 4 seconds ahead on corrected time over Brendan Foley's First 8, Allig8r from the Royal St. George.

Third in the eight-boat race was Foely's clubmate Dick Lovegrove's Sigma 33, Rupert.

After eight races sailed in the series, 1 Lindsay Casey's J97 Windjammer leads but on the same eight points as Allig8r, with Black Velvet third on 11.

Full results in all classes below

Published in DBSC
Page 8 of 134

How to sail, sailing clubs and sailing boats plus news on the wide range of sailing events on Irish waters forms the backbone of Afloat's sailing coverage.

We aim to encompass the widest range of activities undertaken on Irish lakes, rivers and coastal waters. This page describes those sailing activites in more detail and provides links and breakdowns of what you can expect from our sailing pages. We aim to bring jargon free reports separated in to popular categories to promote the sport of sailing in Ireland.

The packed 2013 sailing season sees the usual regular summer leagues and there are regular weekly race reports from Dublin Bay Sailing Club, Howth and Cork Harbour on Afloat.ie. This season and last also featured an array of top class events coming to these shores. Each year there is ICRA's Cruiser Nationals starts and every other year the Round Ireland Yacht Race starts and ends in Wicklow and all this action before July. Crosshaven's Cork Week kicks off on in early July every other year. in 2012 Ireland hosted some big international events too,  the ISAF Youth Worlds in Dun Laoghaire and in August the Tall Ships Race sailed into Dublin on its final leg. In that year the Dragon Gold Cup set sail in Kinsale in too.

2013 is also packed with Kinsale hosting the IFDS diabled world sailing championships in Kinsale and the same port is also hosting the Sovereign's Cup. The action moves to the east coast in July with the staging of the country's biggest regatta, the Volvo Dun Laoghaire regatta from July 11.

Our coverage though is not restricted to the Republic of Ireland but encompasses Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the Irish Sea area too. In this section you'll find information on the Irish Sailing Association and Irish sailors. There's sailing reports on regattas, racing, training, cruising, dinghies and keelboat classes, windsurfers, disabled sailing, sailing cruisers, Olympic sailing and Tall Ships sections plus youth sailing, match racing and team racing coverage too.

Sailing Club News

There is a network of over 70 sailing clubs in Ireland and we invite all clubs to submit details of their activities for inclusion in our daily website updates. There are dedicated sections given over to the big Irish clubs such as  the waterfront clubs in Dun Laoghaire; Dublin Bay Sailing Club, the Royal Saint George Yacht Club,  the Royal Irish Yacht Club and the National Yacht Club. In Munster we regularly feature the work of Kinsale Yacht Club and Royal Cork Yacht Club in Crosshaven.  Abroad Irish sailors compete in Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) racing in the UK and this club is covered too. Click here for Afloat's full list of sailing club information. We are keen to increase our coverage on the network of clubs from around the coast so if you would like to send us news and views of a local interest please let us have it by sending an email to [email protected]

Sailing Boats and Classes

Over 20 active dinghy and one design classes race in Irish waters and fleet sizes range from just a dozen or so right up to over 100 boats in the case of some of the biggest classes such as the Laser or Optimist dinghies for national and regional championships. Afloat has dedicated pages for each class: Dragons, Etchells, Fireball, Flying Fifteen, GP14, J24's, J80's, Laser, Sigma 33, RS Sailing, Star, Squibs, TopperMirror, Mermaids, National 18, Optimist, Puppeteers, SB3's, and Wayfarers. For more resources on Irish classes go to our dedicated sailing classes page.

The big boat scene represents up to 60% of the sail boat racing in these waters and Afloat carries updates from the Irish Cruiser Racer Association (ICRA), the body responsible for administering cruiser racing in Ireland and the popular annual ICRA National Championships. In 2010 an Irish team won the RORC Commodore's Cup putting Irish cruiser racing at an all time high. Popular cruiser fleets in Ireland are raced right around the coast but naturally the biggest fleets are in the biggest sailing centres in Cork Harbour and Dublin Bay. Cruisers race from a modest 20 feet or so right up to 50'. Racing is typically divided in to Cruisers Zero, Cruisers One, Cruisers Two, Cruisers Three and Cruisers Four. A current trend over the past few seasons has been the introduction of a White Sail division that is attracting big fleets.

Traditionally sailing in northern Europe and Ireland used to occur only in some months but now thanks to the advent of a network of marinas around the coast (and some would say milder winters) there are a number of popular winter leagues running right over the Christmas and winter periods.

Sailing Events

Punching well above its weight Irish sailing has staged some of the world's top events including the Volvo Ocean Race Galway Stopover, Tall Ships visits as well as dozens of class world and European Championships including the Laser Worlds, the Fireball Worlds in both Dun Laoghaire and Sligo.

Some of these events are no longer pure sailing regattas and have become major public maritime festivals some are the biggest of all public staged events. In the past few seasons Ireland has hosted events such as La Solitaire du Figaro and the ISAF Dublin Bay 2012 Youth Worlds.

There is a lively domestic racing scene for both inshore and offshore sailing. A national sailing calendar of summer fixtures is published annually and it includes old favorites such as Sovereign's Cup, Calves Week, Dun Laoghaire to Dingle, All Ireland Sailing Championships as well as new events with international appeal such as the Round Britain and Ireland Race and the Clipper Round the World Race, both of which have visited Ireland.

The bulk of the work on running events though is carried out by the network of sailing clubs around the coast and this is mostly a voluntary effort by people committed to the sport of sailing. For example Wicklow Sailing Club's Round Ireland yacht race run in association with the Royal Ocean Racing Club has been operating for over 30 years. Similarly the international Cork Week regatta has attracted over 500 boats in past editions and has also been running for over 30 years.  In recent years Dublin Bay has revived its own regatta called Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta and can claim to be the country's biggest event with over 550 boats entered in 2009.

On the international stage Afloat carries news of Irish and UK interest on Olympics 2012, Sydney to Hobart, Volvo Ocean Race, Cowes Week and the Fastnet Race.

We're always aiming to build on our sailing content. We're keen to build on areas such as online guides on learning to sail in Irish sailing schools, navigation and sailing holidays. If you have ideas for our pages we'd love to hear from you. Please email us at [email protected]