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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
The Royal St George is holding an event to match aspiring crews with crew-seeking skippers tomorrow (Tuesday July 6) at 7.30. The Crew Match Party is an evening for owners/skippers to meet and recruit potential crew for the season. It's…
Tough Going to St.Malo
This year’s race to St. Malo proved to be a light airs affair but that is something that can happen in any yacht race. Jim Saltonstall is a proven coach at the top level and he recognizes that racing in…
Foynes Yacht Club Regatta Takes Place on Sunday
This Sunday, July 11 at Foynes Yacht Club the annual regatta will take place. It is expected that all craft and members will be sailing for what promises to be an eventual day. Class 1, 2, White Sails, Mermaids and the…
Kin Fly the Flag at Edinburgh Cup
Royal North Sailor Simon Brien, sailing with long-standing crew David Gomes and Olympian Stephen Milne, were the top Irish boat at the 2010 Dragon Ednburgh Cup in Cowes this weekend. The last race showdown for the 2010 Dragon Edinburgh Cup…
Irish Optis Begin European Assault
Ireland's European Optimist team are pushing into the top flight at the European Championships in Poland, with Sean Donnelly leading the charge. The Dun Laoghaire sailor is currently tenth overall in the 146-boat boys fleet after two races, the first…
Irish Sailors Perform at Warnemunde
Ireland's Laser Radial sailors are making impressive headway in a huge Laser Radial fleet at the Warnemunde Woche regatta in Germany. Rory Lynch has kept his head and posted two top five results so far to sit just inside the…
BP Boss Hayward on Cork Week Entry List
The British yacht 'Bob', co-owned by Tony Hayward, the troubled chief executive of BP, is to race in Cork Week regatta in Crosshaven from July 10. Although some UK Press reports say Hayward will not be onboard Bob for the Irish regatta his…
Dave Dwyer is 'Sailor of the Month' for June
Dave Dwyer of Cork is the Afloat.ie/Irish Independent “Sailor of the Month” for June with his convincing retention of the British Open IRC Championship over three days of racing which concluded in the Solent on Sunday June 27th. A busy…
Young Guns and a New Clipper Competition
In this week's podcast, you could win one of two spaces on one of the Clipper Yachts for the sail from Kinsale to Cork this Wednesday. Plus we talk to the young guns from Schull Community College and the Pride…
First slot for Ireland vs The World Match Racing Decided
Marty O'Leary’s well-oiled machine convincingly won the first Trial for one of  the last two spots on the Irish Team for the upcoming International Match Racing  Challenge.O’Leary beat Stefan Hyde’s team two nil in the best of three sail off.This…
Schull Juniors Win UK Team Racing Event
The prestigious British Schools Dinghy Racing Championships have taken place over two days of intensive sailing in Kent, U.K. Two Irish teams, Rochestown College and Schull Community College participated through national qualification and competed against the top British and German…
Join the Clipper Parade of Sail on July 7
Cork's Clipper entry was flanked by an armada of boats as she raced into Kinsale on Sunday 27 June.  Now there’s the chance to replicate that as the whole Clipper 09-10 Round the World Yacht Race fleet sails from Kinsale…
Windy WIORA Tests the Best of the West
There were thrills and spills off the Clare coast yesterday as the breeze filled in to test competitors at the WIORA West Coast Championships.  Nonetheless, the top boats shone through and a full complement of sailing was held. IRC1 Glenn…
Irish Dragons Roar in Cowes
Irish eyes were smiling on day two of the 2010 Dragon Edinburgh Cup, supported by Aberdeen Asset Management, as Simon Brien, sailing IRL212 Kin with Stephen Milne and David Gomes, won race three and Andrew Craig, sailing IRL192 Chimaera with…
ISA Youth Worlds Team Depart for Turkey
ISA Youth Worlds team is completing final preparations for the 2010 ISAF Youth World Sailing Championships, which takes place in Istanbul, Turkey from 8th – 17th July 2010. More than 300 young sailors from 60 nations will compete across eight…
O'Neill on Top in SB3 Dublin Bay Race
Barry O'Neill of the Royal St. George Yacht Club topped a 12-boat SB3 fleet tonight in perfect southerly sailing conditions on Dublin Bay. In a tight rounding of the 40-foot mark O'Neill at the helm of Sin Bin, already the…

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]