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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
Let’s hear it for West Cork! Rory Lynch of Baltimore SC comes to the finish against a classic Howth winter background to win the HYC Pre-Christmas Series in the ILCA 7s
A week ago, the Howth Yacht Club Frostbite multi-dinghy racers were pinching themselves to be sure that they really did manage to slip a race in under the radar, despite the rest of the country being battened down in threatened…
Royal Irish's Colin Byrne, the skipper of the 1720 Optique was the winner of the 2023 AIB DBSC Turkey Shoot Series on Dublin Bay
A final race win enabled Colin Byrne's 1720 Optique to be crowned 2023 AIB DBSC Turkey Shoot Champion in Sunday's final race of the 70-boat series. The final race of the Royal Irish Yacht Club hosted series was sailed in medium…
Irish-born navigator Adrienne Cahalan of Alive will be racing in this year's Sydney Hobart Race starting on St. Stehpen's Day
Offaly-born Australian-based sailing superstar and ace navigator Adrienne Cahalane, a veteran of 30 Hobart races with overall and class wins to her credit, was among the expert panel for the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race Long Range Weather Forecast pow-wow on…
Karl O’Neill, Anthony Chambers and Jason Chamber
Christmas is a time for family and, for many, a time for sharing stories of times and generations past. For the Chambers family from Portrush, on Northern Ireland’s Causeway Coast, these stories often involve saving lives at sea. Jason Chambers…
Royal St. George's Katie and John Sheehy with the Melges 15 Top Gun Trophy after hitting a top speed of 18.7 knots (35kph)
Since the Melges 15 first arrived in Ireland, exponents say they know it's fast. First out of the traps were Theo Lyttle and 14-year-old nephew Seb Lyttle, who had an impressive 16.7 knots recorded on Strava. Lyttle’s reign was short-lived…
ILCA 6 getting off the starting line at the Munster Championships in Baltimore, West Cork in 2023
Following on from a busy 2023, the Irish ILCA fleet is looking forward to an exciting year in 2024, both at home and abroad. Next season's ILCA championship calendar is taking shape with events in some of Ireland’s top sailing…
Megan Thomson's 2.0 Racing with crew Leo Takahashi, Nicholas Heiner and Niall Malone
Action-packed and filled with unexpected turns, day four of the 2023 World Match Racing Tour Final in Shenzhen, China, saw the emergence of the final four. The conclusion of the last two flights of the round-robin phase set the stage…
Lucy Kane
Northern Ireland dinghy racer Lucy Kane has shared her excitement at being selected for the British Keelboat Academy. The 22-year-old QUB student and member of East Antrim Boat Club made the grade after an impressive showing at the selection weekend…
The tall ship Tenacious pictured in 2010 in the eastern Mediterranean
Marine Industry News reports that the Jubilee Sailing Trust (Tenacious) Ltd has closed and its assets, including the tall ship Tenacious, will pass into receivership. It follows the auction earlier this year of the JST’s former flagship tall ship Lord…
The first boat ever to be awarded a major perpetual cruising trophy was Royal Ulster YC member Dr Howard Sinclair’s 26ft Brenda, which received the new Challenge Cup of the Cruising Club in 1895 for a Round Ireland cruise. Built as a straight-stemmed racing boat to W E Paton’s designs in Belfast in 1886, Brenda was converted for cruising in 1891, and in 1894 she was lengthened forward with a “modern” stem to Dr Sinclair’s own designs by John Hilditch of Carrickfergus
In a week’s time, Sailing on Saturday will resume normal service with a preview on December 23rd of the up-coming Cruising Yacht Club of Australia Rolex Sydney-Hobart Race on December 26th, both generally and from an Irish angle, for we…
Sienna Wright (Howth Yacht Club) has one won of two Irish bronze medals secured at the Youth Sailing Worlds in Brazil
Dublin and Cork crews have clinched two bronze medals in a highly successful outcome at the youth world sailing championships in Brazil this afternoon.  Sienna Wright of Howth Yacht Club took bronze in the female one-person dinghy, and Ben O’Shaughnessy…
Tim and Richard Goodbody's J109 White Mischief from the Royal Irish Yacht Club leads the DBSC Turkey Shoot on 36 points going into the final race this Sunday
The disqualification of the overall leader of the AIB DBSC Turkey Shoot puts Tim and Richard Goodbody's J109 White Mischief from the Royal Irish Yacht Club at the top of the scoreboard going into the final race this Sunday. Race organisers have issued 'amended…
Sienna Wright of Howth Yacht Club is in fourth place and four points off the ILCA 6 lead going into the final race of the Youth Sailing Worlds in Brazil on Friday
Fourth-placed Sienna Wright of Howth Yacht Club is in a four-way battle for a Youth World Sailing medal in the ILCA 6 class in Brazil. Just four points separate the top four sailors overall going into Friday's final race. Roos Wind (NED) took victory in…
The World Match Racing Tour kicked off its highly anticipated Final as the top twelve match racing teams from nine countries gathered in the Baoan District of Shenzhen
County Waterford sailor Ruairi Finnegan is one of twelve of the world’s best match racing skippers from nine countries who are competing in the City of Shenzhen, China this week for the final event of the 2023 World Match Racing…
John O'Gorman's Sunfast 3600 Hot Cookie from the National Yacht Club is the 2023 DBSC Turkey Shoot leader
Some familiar names are on top of the AIB DBSC Turkey Shoot leaderboard going into Sunday's final race of the country's biggest winter sailing league on Dublin Bay. According to provisional results, with 30 points after five races sailed and…
Some of the 40 young Irish trainees who received their certificates of completion of the Sail Training Ireland Asgard Armada Voyage 2022 at a special awards ceremony in Dublin’s Docklands
Sail Training Ireland will hold its 2024 Annual Award Ceremony at the Mansion House in Dublin on Saturday 3 February. Many of the young people that took part in voyages on tall ships and other sail training vessels in 2023…

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]