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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
National Yacht Club's Jalapeno Wins First Turkey Shoot Race
# DBSC TURKEY SHOOT – Two J109s shared the top slots in the first race of last Sunday's Dublin Bay Sailing Club Turkey Shoot, sponsored this year by Boatshed.com. National Yacht Club Commodore Paul Barrington's Jalapeno beat John Maybury's Joker…
Mixed Olympic Results from Melbourne Warm Up
#OLYMPIC SAILING–As the important Olympic sailing Qualifier event in Perth, Australia draws closer Ireland had Laser, Laser Radial and 49er teams competing in Sail Melbourne as a warm up event last week. 49er dinghy men Ryan Seaton and Matthew McGovern…
Cork Laser Sailors Win in Grafham and Dun Laoghaire
#LASER – Royal Cork Sailor Cian Byrne won the UK's Laser Inland Championships held in Grafham Water Sailing Club last weekend. The event was shortened due to lack of wind. Cian, the only Irish sailor to compete in this class,…
IWDG Hopes Day Trips Will Keep Celtic Mist Afloat
#TALL SHIPS - Not only has the Celtic Mist finally been lifted into dry dock for refurbishing this week, but the Irish Independent reports that day trips will be offered on the yacht when it returns to the water next…
Wessex Exempt won the Irish National Team Racing Championships with the George Knights, making a comeback in their home club, taking second place and the title of Irish Team Racing Champions. The only Youth team in the competition, inevitably representing…
Frostbite Season Underway for Irish Fireballers
#FIREBALL – The Irish Fireball frostbite season got underway in unseasonable blue skies and sunshine conditions on Sunday 6th November, when 11 Fireballs in a 40+ fleet got the series underway writes our Fireball Correspondent.  Arriving at Dun Laoghaire harbour,…
Chinese Gybes at CH Marine League (Photos Here!)
#ROYALCORK – With a brisk south easterly breeze blowing the CH Marine winter sailing fleet at Royal Cork Yacht Club was combined into an all in start using course 93 which was shortened after two rounds making for an eight…
Celtic Mist Finally in Dry Dock for Refitting
#TALL SHIPS - RTÉ News reports that the Celtic Mist is finally in dry dock for refurbishment to begin its new life as a maritime research vessel. http://afloat.ie/sail/tall-ships/ http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/1111/celticmist.html As previously reported on Afloat.ie, the 52-foot yacht - which was…
Jeanie Johnston Visitor Numbers Disappointing But Improving
#TALL SHIPS - Just 17,500 people have visited the replica famine ship Jeanie Johnston since it opened for tours in July 2010, the Sunday Business Post reports. http://www.afloat.ie/sail/tall-ships/ http://www.businesspost.ie/ The disappointing number is around a quarter of those who embarked…
Abu Dhabi Retire from Leg One
#VOLVOOCEANRACE – Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing has retired from Leg 1 of the Volvo Ocean Race today in almost windless conditions having returned to racing early on Thursday following their dismasting on the first night. Wexford's Justin Slattery is part…
Irish Official Gets Short-Listed for Olympic Race Duty
#OLYMPIC – One of Ireland's seven International Race officers (IRO) has been short-listed for the Olympic regatta next July at Weymouth. The National Yacht Club's Jack Roy is one of only 25 rated for one of the most prestigious roles…
ICRA Announce Short List for Boat of the Year Award
#BOAT OF THE YEAR – The Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA) has announced a short list of 16 boats for its annual boat of the year award. The list includes the campaign of recently crowned All Ireland Sailing Champion George…
20 Teams Contest Irish Team Racing Championships
#TEAM RACE – The Irish Team Racing Nationals will be sailed this weekend in Dun Laoghaire. The event is based at the Royal St George Yacht Club. 20 teams have entered, with 6 teams travelling from the UK. 7 Irish…
Facebook,Twitter Launch for Team O'Leary and Burrows, Website to Follow
#OLYMPIC – Ireland's Olympic sailing heavyweights Peter O'Leary and David Burrows are catching the new media wave and have launched a new twitter, facebook presence. The team say they're completing final testing on a new website too. It will be…
Chinese Irish Entry Announces  Leg One Retirement
#SANYA–Team Sanya hit choppy waters this evening following a decision to announce an official retirement from Leg One of the 2011-12 Volvo Ocean Race but they vow to get back in the race as soon as possible. The team have…
Green and Doorly Take FF Frostbite Title
#FLYING FIFTEEN – It was dubbed 'Super Sunday' as four boats were in contention going into week six of the National Yacht Club's Frostbite series for Flying Fifteens and with two races slated it was all up for grabs. Green/Doorly…

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]