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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
Entry List Announced for Tall Ships Races 2012
#TALL SHIPS - Eighteen vessels are on the entry list for the 2012 Tall Ships Races which are set to conclude in Dublin Port next August. http://afloat.ie/sail/tall-ships http://afloat.ie/sail/tall-ships http://afloat.ie/port-news/dublin-port/ The list is dominated by British entries, with all nine UK…
Building Blocks for Dublin Bay 2012
With the experience of reconnaissance visits to three consecutive ISAF Youth World Sailing Championships including Zadar, Croatia in the summer, the organising team which is charged with delivering a memorable 2012 event on Dublin Bay are presently concentrated on the…
Royal Cork Yacht Club Forum to Focus on Development Plan
Royal Cork Admiral Paddy McGlade is staging the club's annual member's 'open forum' on Monday 5th December at the Club House in Crosshaven. The meeting will cover a review of club activities and an update on the club's ten year…
Doran to Defend Junior Sailing Title
#YOUTH SAILING – The Royal St. George Yacht Club stages the All Ireland Junior and Girls Sailing Championships this weekend in a fleet of nine Firefly dinghies. The invitational championship, which will see 18 of Ireland's leading junior sailors compete…
West Cork's McAllister Appointed ISA Regional Development Officer
#SAILING– Gail MacAllister of West Cork Sailing and Powerboating Centre has been appointed an Irish Sailing Association (ISA) Regional Development Officer starting December 5th. In the new full time role McAllister, who has owned and managed West Cork Sailing and…
British Sailors Want Redress Over 1980 Olympic Boycott
#OLYMPICS - "Lingering bittnerness" among British sailing veterans over the boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics has pushed them to seek recognition for the effort they put into their campaigns, the Daily Telegraph reports. http://www.afloat.ie/sail/events/olympics-2012 http://www.afloat.ie/sail/events/racing-update The Royal Yachting Association…
Weekend of Success for Dublin Bay's 'Cri-Cri'
#DBSC–The winner of one of Dublin Bay Sailing Club's (DBSC) Premier Awards last Friday was also the winner of last Sunday's Turkey Shoot race. In a weekend of wins for the club's only Jezequel 116 marque, Cri-Cri skippered by Paul…
Dublin Bay's 2011 Premier Award Winners
90 trophies as well as 509 pieces of glassware were awarded at last Friday's Dublin Bay Sailing Club prizegiving, the 118th prize giving of the club. Top of the trophy cabinet are DBSC's premier awards, presented to boats that in…
Puma Retires After Dismasting
#VOLVOOCEANRACE – After suffering a broken mast, PUMA has officially retired from Leg 1 of the Volvo Ocean Race, the third of six competitors to do so. The rig onboard PUMA's Mar Mostro failed last night at around 15:00 UTC…
Disaster Strikes as Puma Dismasted in Volvo Ocean Race
#DISMAST–PUMA has suffered a broken mast on the first leg of the Volvo Ocean Race, which began 17 days ago from Alicante, Spain. The crew are unhurt. Only 3 of the six starters are now left on the first leg…
New Race From Conwy Features in 2012 ISORA Calendar
#ISORA – A sailing race from Conwy in Wales is a new addition to the 2012 Irish Sea Offshore (ISORA) calendar agreed at the weekend that features virtual waypoints for the first time. It was agreed that virtual marks would…
Offshore Fixture Clash to be Aired at ICRA Conference
#ICRA – Next weekend's agenda for the Irish Cruiser Racer Association (ICRA) meet in Dun Laoghaire will discuss a clash of offshore fixtures following the news that a new 600–mile race from Galway, the Round Rockall race on June 24th…
No 'Frostbite' Worries in Dun Laoghaire
#FIREBALL – Rounds 3 & 4 of the Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club's Frostbite Series were sailed in frost-free conditions yesterday, Sunday 20th November, with a distinctly mild aspect to the start of the afternoon before it started to get…
Crosbie's 'No Excuse' Awarded Royal Cork's Boat of the Year Prize
#ROYAL CORK YACHT CLUB – A leading Munster sailing figure has been deservedly recognised for his contribution to sailing. Ted Crosbie with his Neils Jeppesen-designed X-yacht 'No Excuse' was awarded the Royal Cork Yacht Club's 'Boat of the Year' trophy…
Heineken Join Galway's Volvo Ocean Race –Video here!
#VOLVO OCEAN RACE – As plans progress to celebrate the end of the Volvo Ocean Sailing Race in Galway next June Heineken has won the pouring rights and the brewer is expecting to serve over one and a half million…
'Xtravagance' Keeps DBSC's Waterhouse Shield in the Family
#DUBLIN BAY – Tonight's Dublin Bay Sailing Club Annual Prizegiving 2011 is taking place at the Royal St George Yacht Club and among the top award winners is the X-34 Xtravagance skippered by Colin Byrne from the Royal Irish Yacht…

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]