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

Sailing in Ireland. Sailors, Yachting, Clubs, Regattas
The Royal St George is preparing for the biggest one-design event in Ireland this year, with more than 240 Optimists arriving today for the Mitsubishi Motors Irish National and Open Championships. An international fleet of 180 boats will slug it…
Fireball Euros underway
The Fireball Europeans got under way today with two races in La Rochelle, and seven Irish boats are sailing among the 88-boat fleet. Results have only been posted for one race so far, and with ten teams caught out on…
Dingle Departure a Cliff-hanger
The 52-boat Figaro fleet left Dingle on Sunday bound for Dieppe via the Fastnet, with a start under the cliffs in a strong south-westerly giving the fleet an early upwind workout. The fleet is now approaching Lands End, still surfing…
Fitzpatrick takes match title
Howth sailor Tom Fitzpatrick took the latest leg of the Match Racing Tour of Ireland this weekend, pipping home sailor John Sheehy in the final of the Helly Hansen Leinster Match Racing Open. The event, staged in Dun Laoghaire's  Royal…
East Coast Championships at Howth Yacht Club
Plain sailing for a good turnout at Howth Yacht Club for the East Coast Championships yesterday (16th August 2009) in fresh enough easterly wind, where Xebec took Class 2 IRC, Pepperbox Class 2 Echo, Alliance Class 3 IRC and Turnabout…
Cian Byrne wins UK Optimist Junior Nationals
Royal Cork Optimist Sailor Cian Byrne did the business on the final day of the UK Optimist Junior Nationals in Largs yesterday writes Tom Crosbie. Cian's three third places on day 6 of the 12 race series were enough to…
Goodbody to the fore in DBSC heavy wind race
Westerly winds gusting to 25 knots brought some of the best sailing conditions of the season to Dublin Bay on Saturday. With only six races left to the end of the DBSC 2009 season points are adding up across the…
Irish in the Fastnet: Whisper fifth
While the previous Rolex Fastnet Race is remembered for the course record time being demolished, the only record broken in this year's running of the Royal Ocean Racing Club's biennial 608 nautical-mile classic was one relating to competitor patience, as…
Dingle to Dieppe - Last Leg Starts Tomorrow
The fourth leg of this year’s Solitaire du Figaro sets off from Dingle at noon local time tomorrow, at 511 miles the longest and the last of the series, and another classic mix of coastal and offshore sailing. After nearly…
Giles wins Class Two Howth Yacht Club Champs
HOWTH YACHT CLUB EAST COAST CHAMPIONSHIPS (O'ALL) 16/08/2009 Class 2  IRC:  1, Xebec T Giles HYC (4.00);  2, Dux A Gore-Grimes HYC (9.00);  3, Sunburn I Byrne HYC (10.00);  4, Toughnut D Skehan HYC (15.00);  5, Pepperbox C & M…
Long, slow finish

Long, slow finish

14th August 2009 Racing
Typically the Rolex Fastnet Race is all but concluded by the Friday morning, five days after the start. But by this morning, only around one third of the fleet have reached the finish off Plymouth, for the Royal Ocean Racing…
Shannagh Tops the DBSC Ruffians
A full tide and light southerly winds gently swept Shannagh (S.Gill/P.MacDiarmada) to a win in tonight's Dublin Bay Sailing Club Ruffian race. Second in the Ruffian race was Larry Power's Paramour. The combined cruiser and one design classes headed south…
Ran 2 confirmed overall Fastnet winner
This afternoon the Royal Ocean Racing Club, organisers of the biennial British 608-mile classic offshore race, confirmed that Niklas Zennström’s Ran 2 is the overall handicap winner of the 2009 Rolex Fastnet Race. Zennström’s Judel-Vrolijk designed 72-footer finished the race…
Low pressure springs surprises for Figaro
Equipped with only the most limited means of communication with the outside world, life can be full of surprises for the solo skipper in La Solitaire du Figaro – and not all of them welcome. Just one such bolt from…
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) today confirmed there will be 10 sailing events at the London 2012 Olympic Games. The Executive Board of the IOC confirmed the line up of events and disciplines for the 26 sports on the Programme…
Plymouth welcomes Fastnet after busy night
This morning (Thursday 13th August), the tally of arrivals on the Rolex Fastnet Race is up to 43 after a busy night with the leading boats in the Class 40 and Zero fleets arriving. Making possibly the best entrance last…

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]