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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

Sailing in Ireland. Sailors, Yachting, Clubs, Regattas
A lightning strike hits the water just a few hundred metres ahead of Luna Rossa on their way to the finishing line
Rain clouds coming off the mountains to the north of Barcelona produced some challenging and dynamic conditions with enormous shifts in the wind on day one of the Louis Vuitton Cup’s second round robin — the stage of the Challenger…
Tom Dolan has led the 36-strong fleet of solo racers since Monday afternoon
With a clear lead of over five nautical miles on a course which should now be a straight line to the La Solitaire du Figaro finish off Royan, Ireland’s Tom Dolan (Smurfit Kappa-Kingspan) will be hoping above all else that…
Emergency and rescue services work near the scene where the Bayesian superyacht sank off the coast of Porticello a fortnight ago
The Bayesian superyacht crew member who was on watch when the vessel sank a fortnight ago in a storm off Sicily has described how he woke the skipper when wind speed hit 20 knots. Italian news agency Ansa reports that…
Four Irish Sailors attended the sixth RS Aero World Championships concluded on Friday at Hayling Island Sailing Club (HISC), UK, Noel Butler (National YC), John Phelan and Daragh Sheridan (Howth YC) in the 6 rig and Roy Van Maanen (Greystones SC) in the 5 rig, pictured above at the opening ceremony 
The sixth RS Aero World Championships concluded on Friday (August 30th) at Hayling Island Sailing Club (HISC), UK. 175 entries representing 18 countries, including a four-strong team from Ireland, competed in the 12 races over five days. The event, expertly…
Irish 420 pairing Cora McNaughton and Sean Cronin
Two Irish crews were among the 41 entries for the UK 420 National Championships at Dale Yacht Club in southwest Wales. Cora McNaughton and Sean Cronin from Blessington SC and Malahide SC, and Daniel Copthorne and Matt Mapplebeck from Schull…
26 dinghy sailors took part in Monkstown Bay Sailing Club's August League in Cork Harbour
Lasers dominated the top places in Class 1 of Monkstown Bay Sailing Club's August League, with Brendan Dwyer winning the final race of the series from Shane O'Connell. Both finished the nine-race series in which two discards were allowed, seven…
Over 30 cruiser-racers competed at Royal Cork Yacht Club's 'At Home' Regatta outside Cork Harbour
With one race on Saturday (August 31st) and two on Sunday, and no discard, Royal Cork Yacht Club's 304th 'At Home' Regatta attracted a mixed fleet of over 30 cruiser-racers for handicap racing outside Cork Harbour. As Afloat reported earlier, the National…
Ireland's 49er crew of Rob Dickson and Sean Waddilove competing in Marseilles at the highest level
The all-or-nothing public attitude to Olympic competition and its medals tends to double-down on the frustration that accompanies fourth place. Yet the sailing community are very aware that the fourth place held by Ireland's 49er crew of Rob Dickson and…
Sean Craig of the Royal St George YC. Back in May, he became top Grand Master in the ILCA Masters and was declared 2024 Water Wag Champion before August was out
A dinghy sailing polymath like Sean Craig of the Royal St George YC tends to see his achievements spread over all the months of the sailing season. Back in May, he became top Grand Master in the ILCA Masters Ireland…
ICRA National Championship 2024 Overall Winner John Murphy of Outrajeous with his sailor sons Thomas and Charlie, and ICRA Commodore Denis Byrne (right) at the hosting Royal Irish YC
John Murphy of the J/109 Outrajeous (Howth YC) is so determined to share the 2024 Unio ICRA Nationals Overall Champion title with his crew that the adjudicators reckon that helmsman Neil Spain should share the award with him on their…
This afternoon, Tom Dolan collected the 5 minutes bonus for winning the intermediate sprint in Stage 2 of La Solitaire du Figaro
Ireland’s Tom Dolan collected the five minute time bonus for winning Stage 2 of La Solitaire du Figaro Paprec’s Intermediate Sprint when the skipper of Smurfit Kappa-Kingspan passed the Sisargas Islands off the village of Malpica on the rugged NW…
A 40-year-old West Clare currach was restored by the Mens Shed in Mountjoy Prison's Training unit
The project to restore a 40-year-old West Clare currach was completed with the launch of the finished boat 'Spleodar' (Spleodar means Joy, excitement in Irish) on the River Liffey in Dublin this weekend. Working with the Mens Shed in Mountjoy…
Round-the-clock challenge – the damaged AC boat Taihoro has been brought back from a near-death experience in the ICU in Barcelona
It is said that boat construction with fibreglass and its derivatives is the only known method of boat-building where you actually create your hull material as the work progresses. Thus in its most advanced forms, with carbon fibre and extra-special…
The Howth ICRA IRC One champion 'Outrajeous' prepares to round a weather mark during the UNIO ICRA Nats 2024 on Dublin Bay with Joker II not far behind
The success of the J/109 in Ireland has been underlined, with boats of this marque filling the first five places of Cruisers 1 IRC in the UNIO ICRA Nats 2024. Why so? Well, the reality is that apart from the…
After 180 races, a clear top 8 teams emerged for the quarterfinals the 2024 Elmo Trophy team racing event at the Royal St. George Yacht Club, Dun Laoghaire Harbour 
In a case of team racing history repeating, UK visitors the Rutland Raiders climbed through a packed Elmo Trophy leaderboard on Sunday morning at the Royal St. George Yacht Club to top the round-robin rankings and ultimately convincingly win the…
Colm Bermingham's Elan 333 Bite the Bullet from Howth on one of Friday's round the cans courses at the Unio ICRA Nationals 2024 on Dublin Bay
As racing was reduced to five races at the Unio ICRA Nationals 2024 on Dublin Bay with no racing possible on Sunday, Colm Bermingham's Elan 333 Bite the Bullet from Howth won by a point in both non-spinnaker IRC and…

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]