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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
Greagsbey Wins in Howth
HOWTH YACHT CLUB. LASER FROSTBITE WINTER (O'ALL) 12/12/2010 LASER STANDARD: 1, Conor Greagsbey NYC (31.00); 2, Evan Dolan NYC (33.00); 3, Michael Evans HYC (45.00); LASER STANDARD APPRENTICE: 1, Conor Murphy HYC (12.00); 2, Brendan Costello MYC (16.00); 3, Conor…
Foxall to be Groupama Helmsman, Trimmer and Crew Manager
Ireland's Damian Foxall is the first to be named officially as crew on French Yacht Groupama in the next Volvo Ocean Race that starts next year and finishes in Galway in June 2012.  As Ireland's most capped offshore racing sailor,…
Liddy Launches La Solitaire du Figaro Campaign (Podcast)
Mick Liddy is already picturing the magical scene of the international Figaro fleet inside Dun Laoghaire's harbour next August. He's one of Ireland's top offshore sailors but before Liddy can join the 55 boat fleet he has two months to…
Shooting of Sky's sailing TV movie "Treasure Island" took to the seas as the three-masted barque, Earl of Pembroke entered Dublin Bay today, writes Jehan Ashmore. Circling above the 174-tonnes barque was a helicopter equipped with cameras. The 1948 built former…
Christophe Bullens celebrates his arrival in Cape Town as he finishes the first Ocean Sprint of the Velux 5 Oceans, from La Rochelle onboard his boat Five Oceans of Smiles Too. Five Oceans of Smiles Too Photo: Ainhoa Sanchez/w-w-i.com The…
Stakeholders from France, England, Ireland and Wales attended a two-day workshop in Cork last week with a view to establishing a new code to protect the natural environment of the Celtic Sea from the effects of marine activities, World Fishing…
Details for next year's course of the La Solitaire du Figaro race were revealed at the Paris Boat Show yesterday. The race will comprise four French towns and Dun Laoghaire will be the only foreign port of call when the…
Nicholas "Nin" O'Leary of Cork has re-written the Irish sailing records, and he's only 24. The new All Ireland Champion Helm is clear winner of the Afloat.ie/Irish Independent "Sailor of the Month" award for November after a nail-biting finale in…
Kinsale Yacht Club's Sovereigns Cup event website has gone live. Included on the site is the Notice of Race (NOR) and official entry form for the June event.
Sheila Tyrrell to Chair New Sail Training Group
The new umbrella organisation Sail Training Ireland includes a number of key sailing people involved in sail training in Ireland including the chief executive of the Irish Sailing Association Harry Hermon and Seamus McLoughlin the head of operations of Dublin…
A sailing initiative aimed at Irish participation in next year's Tall Ships Races in Waterford has been announced by a newly formed national organisation Sail Training Ireland. Since the sinking of the Asgard II and the decision to wind up…
The 2010 Annual General Meeting and Prizegiving of the South Coast Offshore Cruising Association (SCORA) will take place at Kinsale Yacht Club on Friday December 3rd at 8pm. Hugh Mockler of HM Yachts will present the League prizes for the…
BRITISH skipper Chris Stanmore-Major today became the fourth skipper to complete the first ocean sprint of the epic VELUX 5 OCEANS solo round the world yacht race. After 36 days and 44 minutes at sea, the 33-year-old from Cowes, Isle…
HOWTH YACHT CLUB. BRASS MONKEYS WINTER (RACE) 21/11/2010 Class 2 HPH: 1, Joslim J Connolly; 2, C'est la Vie Flannelly/Others; 3, Maximus P Kyne; Class 3 HPH: 1, Pucaban G McGuire; 2, Schullduggery G Forde; 3, Tobago Hanna/Others; Class 1…
The All Ireland Championships at Kinsale today turned out in the end to be an event well worth the long wait and provided thrilling competition from start to finish writes Claire Bateman. It was sailed in a three metre swell…
The largest tall-ship sailing the US flag the USCGC Eagle is to visit Waterford and northern Europe in 2011 during the vessels 75th anniversary celebrations, according to a report in TheDay.com. The United States Coastguard Cutter operates the sail-training vessel…

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]