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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
Locals in Arklow call on Wicklow County Council to retain parts of historic former Arklow schooner, De Wadden, before demolition. The three-masted cargo ship traded for decades on the Irish Sea, is seen above at Liverpool Maritime Museum, where it has been on display for decades.
Maritime enthusiasts from Arklow have implored Wicklow County Council to help them in their race against the clock to save parts of an historic auxiliary sailing cargo-ship, the last of its type to serve on the Irish Sea. The local…
Cian McCarthy, co-skipper on Cinnamon Girl from Kinsale, pictured in Sydney Harbour in preparation for the 2023 Rolex Sydney Hobart Race
For Kinsale Yacht Club's Cian McCarthy, owner and co-skipper with Sam Hunt of the Jeanneau Sun Fast 3300, Cinnamon Girl – Eden Capital, the two-handed entry from Ireland, this will be their first Sydney-Hobart Race, one of ten international entries…
Dave Dwyer’s Half Tonner Swuzzlebubble crew competing at July's Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta
Dave Dwyer’s success with Swuzzlebubble comes from a determination to acquire the classic Farr-designed half-tonner, which had been a wreck in Greece. He comes from a Cork family that has a four-generation sailing history. Dave Dwyer’s Half Tonner Swuzzlebubble competing…
The principal objective of this measure is to carefully manage salmon stocks in the Foyle and Carlingford systems due to concern from within the Loughs Agency over the conservation levels of the species
Loughs Agency has made the decision to retain salmon carcass tag numbers for angling licence holders for the 2024 season in line with the policy followed in the previous three years at a maximum of one blue tag (1st March…
ICRA Boat of the Year, the Half-Tonner Swuzzlebubble, will race at Volvo Cork Week 2024
The recently crowned ICRA Boat of the Year, the Half-Tonner Swuzzlebubble, is confirmed among the early entries for Volvo Cork Week 2024,  just one of a number of key campaigns aiming for the biennial race week at Royal Cork Yacht…
Royal Cork Half Tonner 'Swuzzlebubble' (David and James Dwyer) is the ICRA Boat of the Year 2023
Following a busy and successful racing season of Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA) events nationwide, the legendary Half-Tonner Farr-designed yacht, Swuzzlebubble, raced by David and James Dwyer under the burgee of the Royal Cork Yacht Club, was deemed the 'clear…
East Down Yacht Club's 2024 Icicle Series on Strangford Lough is open to all dinghies next January
East Down Yacht Club will start the New Year with its annual Icicle Series on Sunday, 7th January. It will run for six Sundays, ending on 11th February. The Club is situated on a nine-acre site on the western shore…
Dublin 49er campaigners Robert Dickson and Sean Waddilove led the 52nd Trofeo Princesa Sofia Mallorca after two days of the competition last April. The 53rd Regatta begins in Mallorca on April 1st 2024
With exactly one hundred days to go until the start of the 53rd Trofeo Princesa Sofia Mallorca the Organising Committee has just published the Notice of Race. As regular Afloat readers will recall, Dublin 49er campaigners Robert Dickson and Sean…
World Sailing, the global governing body for the sport of sailing, has confirmed the appointment of an independent World Sailing Election Panel to oversee the 2024 Presidential and Vice-Presidential elections. The panel, comprising four independent legal and regulatory professionals, is…
Galway Hookers illuminated for Christmas at the Claddagh Basin, Galway
Tributes have been paid to Badóirí an Cladaigh for illuminating their fleet of Galway Hookers this Christmas time in Galway. The traditional boat fleet takes pride in lighting their rigs in the city's basin for special occasions.   As regular Afloat readers know,…
Overall Winner Sydney Hobart Race contenders line up behind the Tattersall Cup
Sam Haynes dismisses the notion that there is a target on his back as the owner/skipper of the defending overall Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race champion boat Celestial. Asked on Wednesday as he sat among a panel of contenders for…
Phil Quinn is a former Sailing Captain of Strangford Lough Yacht Club in County Down and has over 40 years of sailing experience
Philip Quinn has been chosen as the new Skipper of Qingdao in the Clipper Round the World Race. He will join from Airlie Beach in Queensland, Australia, at the start of a long stint of about 26000 miles to the…
Frank McFarlane and Brian Conway from CSC negotiate some big gusts on Belfast Lough in the final race of the RS400 Frostie Series at Royal North of Ireland Yacht Club
The last Sunday of the RS400 Frostie Series at Royal North of Ireland Yacht Club was raced on the 27th of December, and the excitement was building as it looked like it was going to be a big day, and…
Dr Rachel Millar and Dr David Smyth of Ulster Wildlife with Belfast Harbour’s Simon Gibson at the new native oyster nursery at City Quays
A shellfish nursery recently installed in Belfast Harbour in an effort to revive the Northern Ireland capital’s native oysters is already showing promising results. Last month, hundreds of oysters were lowered into the water at City Quays for the project,…
Is this what it has come to for a once keenly-sailed GP14? Her extremely stationary condition is emphasised by the distant but very live background of Sutton Dinghy Club
Those intrepid spirits who venture westward on the road from the Most Serene Republic of Howth through Sutton Cross, and on into the wilds of nearby Ireland, always used to look forward to the first glimmering glimpse of Sutton Creek…
A tight weather mark rounding for Alastair Court & Gordon Syme (hidden) and Frank Miller & Caroul (14990), with Owen Sinnott & Grattan Donnelly (14865) ready to take advantage of any mistakes
Series 1 of the DMYC’s Viking Marine-sponsored Frostbites concluded on Sunday in variable wind conditions that saw as much as 16 knots on the course at times, and boats stalled due to a lack of wind at other times. However,…

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]