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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
Duncan Lougee
A vessel has been found in the search for a solo sailor who went missing last week while en route to West Cork. However, there is still no sign of its skipper, whose family have issued an appeal for any…
Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) Water Wag Little Tern, Number 36, was the Wednesday evening handicap race winner at Dun Laoghaire Harbour
Tim Pearson's Little Tern was Wednesday evening's Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) Water Wag race winner at Dun Laoghaire Harbour. The fixture was a handicap race with seven staggered starts run by Race Officer Brian Mathews.  The wind was variable, with…
The Ladies Cruise in Company  with (right back) Keith Carr, Commodore, EDYC and right front, Margie Crawford, Event organiser
If you could bottle the energy, enthusiasm and excitement of the 24 ladies who took advantage of East Down Yacht Club’s day set aside for women to learn how to handle a big boat, then a fortune is to be…
Boats competing in the 2023 E-Boat National Championships, hosted by Skerries Sailing Club
The E-Boat National Championships were hosted by Skerries Sailing Club over the weekend of 24 and 25 June, as part of the Club’s Annual Regatta. With the Club also hosting the Fireball Leinster Championships, there was quite a medley of…
The 2023 44Cup fleet in Marstrand, Sweden
After a lengthy break since early March, the 2023 44Cup resumes today in Marstrand, Sweden and three Irish sailors are competing. As previously highlighted by Afloat, Donaghdee's Oisin McClelland and Dublin Bay's Cian Guilfoyle are on board Aleph Racing, and…
Marc Fitzgibbon and Donal Gallagher’s Howth 17  ‘Orla’ rounds the Fastnet Rock
The frequently misquoted ‘if you build it, he will come’ is often used to inspire and motivate people to follow their instincts in respect of unthinkable events and dreams, but it seemed like destiny for the oldest one-design racing keelboat…
Former National Yacht Club Commodore, the late Brian Barry
Former National Yacht Club (NYC) Commodore Brían Barry of Killiney, County Dublin, has died. Brian was a Member of the NYC for over 50 years. He came into sailing through Glenans, and with his wife Anne, he continued introducing people to…
ISORA champion, the J109 Mojito from Pwllheli Sailing Club in North Wales, competes this Saturday in the annual RORC Lyver Race from Holyhead to Dun Laoghaire
Saturday's Lyver Trophy Race Holyhead to Dun Laoghaire Offshore Race marks the arrival of competitors from across the Irish Sea for next week's big one, the 350-boat Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta.  With a declared entry of 18 boats, the weekend…
Racing at the 2023 Squib National Championships in Weymouth
There was an improvement in scores for Irish boats at the UK and Ireland Squib National Championships. The leading Irish boat, in 22nd place after six races sailed, is Ian Travers and Keith O’Riordan in ‘Outlaw’ from Kinsale Yacht Club. The…
Baltimore Sailing Club's Cliodhna Connolly sailing on Italian entry Altea with Andrea Racchelli at the Melges 24 World Championship fleet in Middelfart, Denmark
It was a demanding second day for Baltimore Sailing Club's Cliodhna Connolly and the rest of the 47 Melges 24 World Championship fleet in Middelfart, Denmark on Wednesday. 1720 sailor, Connolly, who is sailing on Italian entry Altea with Andrea Racchelli,…
From left, at The Ocean Race Summit Genova with host Danni Washington were Olympic sailing gold medallist and broadcaster Lily Xu Lijia; Alessandra Ghezzi, communications director with 11th Hour Racing; and Arianne van de Loosdrecht, WindWhisper Racing Team crew member
A milestone in the journey towards a Universal Declaration of Ocean Rights is being reached this week in Genoa, Italy as two years of efforts to drive support for a declaration, and expert input on what it should include, enter…
Galway Bay and the Aran Islands will mark a celebration of sailing when they host the West of Ireland Offshore Racing Championships (WIORA) from July 5th to 8th. Arainn, as in the three islands, proved to be such an attractive…
Sailing Coach Thomas Chaix sailing with his eldest son Ben in a Mirror dinghy he restored. The pair are aiming to compete in next month's 50-boat Mirror World Championships in County Sligo
Sailing Coach Thomas Chaix looks at the benefits of the Mirror dinghy in the lead-up to the World Championships in Sligo as well as a possible new orientation for the 1962 design that has more than 70,000 built worldwide Why the Mirror?…
Royal St. George Yacht Club's Theo Lyttle with his nephew Seb (14) sailing at speed in the Melges 15 dinghy on Dublin Bay. See video below
Last Friday may have brought grey skies and rain to Dublin Bay, but it also brought wind, finally giving the chance for the new Melges 15 sailors to cut loose on the bay. Having previously held the speed record, Laser…
In the buildup to the Centenary of Conor O'Brien's significant arrival with Saoirse at Funchal in Madeira next Monday (July 3rd), the restored 1926-vintage O'Brien-designed 56ft trading ketch Ilen, under the command of James Lyons of the Sailing Into Wellness…
The chart of the fixed marks for the 2023 Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta, where there will be six different race courses operating across the bay from July 6-9 at Ireland's biggest sailing event
Over 350 boats will prepare to race across 40 divisions in one week's time as Ireland's largest regatta on Dublin Bay gets underway. The first Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta kicks off next Thursday (July 6th) for the first time since…

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]