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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
Adrienne Cahalan, navigator of overall winner Alive, with the Tattersall Cup for the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race, December 2023
It’s a very long time since Adrienne Cahalane was regularly near Lough Derg. But though she and her section of the family emigrated to Australia when she was very young, those left behind such as cousin Aisling Keller have been…
Finola Flanagan with ISORA’s Wolf’s Head champion’s trophy with her husband Paul O’Higgins (centre) and his crew of shipmates and friends who race the successful Rockabill VI
While sailing in Ireland has its conspicuously attention-getting aspects, the real backbone of the sport continues to be the active club sailor who can quietly keep a usefully large crew panel together in order to have the right mix of…
Chris Bateman on the helm racing a restored Fireball
Former junior champion Chris Bateman is a top sailor who leads by example and inspiration. Having decided that the ever-young Fireball is the answer for junior and adult dinghy sailors who don’t want to go down the cheque-book route to…
The late Richard Tudor, for many years, was one of the guiding forces behind the development of sailing at Pwllheli in North Wales and in offshore racing in the Irish Sea

Richard Tudor RIP

1st January 2024 ISORA
His many sailing friends on both sides of the Irish Sea have been saddened to learn of the death of Richard Tudor of Pwllheli, an inspirational figure in sailing and across a wide spectrum of interests in boats. He was…
RS21s competing at Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta on Dublin Bay in July 2023. The keelboat will race at Volvo Cork Week in July 2024
Brilliant events, informative shows and some new records broken by RS Sailing and RS sailors. It was a brilliant summer of events for RS Sailing. Highlights include the RS Feva World Championships which saw 422 sailors coming with their families…
Awarded World Boat of the Year in 2022, the Melges 15 is now the fastest-growing class in the world, with 700 boats worldwide
To celebrate the launch of the European Winter Series in Cascais, Portugal, Melges Ireland is offering a double discount on the purchase of new boats for Irish sailors chartering at the series. With a promotional charter fee of €475, new Melges…
The challenge in the Viking Marine DMYC Frostbites Series PY class is to take a race from the dominant RS Aero group
With the days getting longer, the Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club Viking Marine Sponsored Dinghy Frostbites Series resumes on Sunday, 7th, January, with 12 Sundays of racing in Series 2 until the end of March. Entries are open for any…
The J/122 El Ocaso – class winner in Antigua Week 2023 – has been chartered by Howth’s Simon Knowles for the RORC Caribbean 600 2024 in February
Howth Yacht Club J/109 skipper Simon Knowles – the inshore and offshore campaigner of Indian in Irish waters – and noted Pwllheli father-and-son offshore team of Andrew and Sam Hall, will be ensuring that the Irish Sea is well represented with…
Kinsale Okay - Sam Hunt (left), Steph Lyons, and Cian McCarthy (right) flying the flag for Kinsale YC in Hobart after success in the race from Sydney
We'll be carrying a full review of the Irish in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race 2023 in due course, but meanwhile, this sunny photo shows that the weather is on the mend down in Tasmania and that Kinsale YC members…
Reaching the finish of the Transat Jacques Vabre Yacht Race in Martinique, Tiphaine Ragueneau (left and Ireland's Pam Lee of Greystones Harbour
Let’s do that again, but do it better – they are the words of a very determined Pam Lee from Greystones, who came 29th with Tiphaine Ragueneau in the 30th Transat Jacques Vabre yacht race from Le Havre to Martinique.…
Impalas competing in Strangford Lough. In 2024, East Down Yacht Club will stage the class European Championships
East Down Yacht Club in Northern Ireland will host the Impala European Championship on 25th/26th May next year. The event will incorporate the UK and Irish National Championships of the 28-foot one-design keelboat class. The club has a nine-acre site on…
The turning point. Until mid-August 2023, it seemed increasingly possible that Ireland would not qualify for a place in any sailing class in the 2024 Paris Olympics, at that time just eleven months away. But then Finn Lynch secured qualification for the ILCA 7 at the Sailing Worlds 2023 in The Netherlands (above), and in November Robert Dickson & Sean Waddilove did the same for the 49er at the Euros in Portugal. The tide had well and truly turned
Afloat.ie has already clocked 2.1 million readers during 2023, so we’re communicating with a large and often international readership, although the core of our regular visitors is still very much in Ireland. And now, with just one day to go…
Two-Handed winner Mistral (Ruper Henry) gets a touch of the rainbow approaching the Hobart finish with a goood breeze on the edge of an early afternoon shower
On this cool Saturday evening in Hobart, Cian McCarthy and Sam Hunt of Kinsale brought their chartered Sunfast 3300 Cinnamon Girl-Eden Capital in at 9:11 pm local time to the Tasmanian port city's waterfront to finish fourth on water and…
11th Hour Racing Team’s crew receive their first-place trophy during the prize-giving ceremony on stage in the Ocean Live Park in Genoa, Italy on 1 July 2023
The year 2023 opened with the start of The Ocean Race from Alicante, Spain on 15 January — the first edition of the event to be raced in the high-tech foiling, flying IMOCAs, and the latest evolution in the 50-year…
The Arkea Ultim Challenge - Brest will be the first-ever solo race around the world on giant Ultim trimarans, the biggest and fastest ocean-going sailboats in the world., The race starts from Brest, France, on Sunday, 7th, January
The Arkea Ultim Challenge - Brest, which starts from Brest, France, on Sunday, 7th, January, will be the first-ever solo race around the world on giant Ultim trimarans, the biggest and fastest ocean-going sailboats in the world. There are many…
Duncan Hine spraying his crew with champagne after his overall win of the 2023 Rolex Sydney Hobart Race
Alive, skippered by Duncan Hine, has been declared the overall winner of the 78th Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, securing the Tasmanian boat its second victory in five years. Hine lauded his 14 crew which included Irish-born navigator Adrienne Cahalane,…

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]