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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
DBSC First Series Likely Winners Announced
Dublin Bay Sailing Club has published the provisional results of its 2011 first series results up to Juyl 2nd showing the Commodore's yacht Gringo as the Class one likely winner on Saturday's under ECHO Handicap. The top performing cruiser one…
Celtic Mist Reaches Scotland, Ready for New Life
The yacht once owned by former Taoiseach Charles Haughey will return to Ireland next week for its new life as a marine research vessel after completing the first leg of the 2011 Tall Ships Races. The 52-foot Celtic Mist, the…
Cowes Dinard St Malo Sailing Race Preview
The race to St. Malo from Cowes has always been a popular event and this weekend 177 yachts will race across the English Channel to the famous port. The race dates back to before the formation of the Royal Ocean…
Big Winds Start Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta
Unexpected strong winds got the fourth Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta off to a stunning start on Dublin Bay yesterday even though a number of boats in the massive 420-boat fleet got into difficulties as the southerly breeze hit 25 knots.…
Irish Youth Sailors to Compete at Youth Worlds
350 sailors from 60 countries are gathering in the Adriatic town of Zadar in Croatia for the 41st edition of the ISAF Youth Sailing World Championship including four youth sailors representing Ireland in three different classes. The competiton runs from…
English enter 'Yorkshire' to the Clipper Race
Yorkshire is set to take on the world with the announcement today that it is to compete in the Clipper 11-12 Round the World Yacht Race as the only English entry in the ten-strong field for the 40,000-mile global contest…
McCann Leads Optimist Europeans
After six races sailed at the Optimist European Championships in Tavira, Portugal, Royal Cork's Peter McCann leads the fleet after posting three top six finishes and discarding a 44th yesterday. The great effort by the Crosshaven youth sailor may yet…
Tall Ship Refloated Off Scotland
The tall ship that ran aground off Scotland yesterday has been refloated. http://www.afloat.ie/sail/tall-ships/ As previously reported on Afloat.ie, the 100-foot-long Irene of Bridgwater, with 10 people on board, became stuck in Lamlash Bay on its way to port at Greenock…
New Centre at Dunbrody Tells the Irish-American Story
Tomorrow sees the official opening ceremony of Ireland's first visitor centre dedicated to the history of emigration. The National Centre for Emigration History in New Ross, Co Wexford, which incorporates the Irish America Hall of Fame, will be opened by…
Donnelly and Van Maanen Top in RS 400 and RS 200 Southerns
A competitive sailing fleet of twenty-three boats turned out for this year's RS400 and RS200 Southerns hosted by Greystones Sailing Club. Both competitors and organisers were not very optimistic on Friday evening with an ominous forecast on the Windguru web…
Tall Ship Runs Aground off Scotland
One of the vessels that departed last weekend's Tall Ships festival in Waterford and is heading for the next  race stage in Scotland has run aground off the island of Arran. The 100ft-long tall ship Irene of Bridgwater, with 10…
Set-back for Twomey in Weymouth
There have been set backs for the Irish Paralympic crew today in the Sonar Class at Weymouth in the IFDS Worlds writes Claire Bateman. Crews braved winds of more than 20 knots in Portland Harbour today as Weymouth and Portland's…
Second Irish Quarter Tonner Heads for Cowes
Following Monday's report on the Irish championship winning yacht Tiger (Neil Kenefick) sailing in the Quarter Ton Cup in Cowes next week a second Royal Cork Yacht, Eamonn Rohan's Quarter tonner 'Anchor Challenge' is also heading to the Solent. Her…
The Fastnet Yacht Race
Since it was first run in 1925, the Royal Ocean Racing Club's biennial Rolex Fastnet Race has earned a reputation for being one of the toughest events in the international yacht racing calendar. This has come about from the brutal…
Follow The Yellowbrick...
Yellowbrick Trackers will be fitted to every boat in the Rolex Fastnet Race allowing friends and family to follow the race Yellowbrick are delighted to be providing the tracking devices for this year's Rolex Fastnet Race, which will relay real-time…
Lyver Race Report - Holyhead to Howth
Following very closely after the Dingle Race, ICRA Nationals in Crosshaven and the Sovereign's Cup in Kinsale, it was understandable that the numbers of ISORA boats taking part in the Lyver Race was small. The "grim" forecast of no wind…

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]