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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
The start of the 2022 Round Ireland Race from Wicklow. Headwinds are likely for Saturday's 2024 start
Wicklow Harbour is gearing up for the start of the SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race, which will commence at 1 p.m. on Saturday. The biennial 700 nautical-mile offshore race will see 49 boats vying for top honours in the challenging…
The SB20 European Championships will be staged in Malta this September
The Royal Malta Yacht Club is awaiting registrations from Ireland, among other countries, for its staging of the 2024 SB20 European Championships in September. France, the UK, Hungary, Singapore, South Africa, and Moldova have already confirmed participation. "We are awaiting…
The grey-hulled superyacht Norn crossed Dublin Bay at 10 am on her way into Dublin Port
The $250 million megayacht NORN, owned by billionaire Microsoft tech tycoon Charles Simonyi, is visiting Dublin this morning. The battleship grey-hulled vessel crossed Dublin Bay at 10 am on her way into Dublin Port.  The brand new NORN is currently sailing under…
RYANI chief Greg Yarnall (left) at one of the marine flare disposal events organised around Northern Ireland on Saturday 15 June
Northern Ireland’s sailing community handed in an unprecedented 4,000 expired marine flares at disposal events held at Portrush Yacht Club, Bangor Marina and Lough Erne Yacht on Saturday 15 June. As previously reported on Afloat.ie, RYA Northern Ireland organised these…
The award-winning Lady Min, sailed at Crosshaven by Michael McCann with a new suit of North Sails, was designed and built by Maurice O’Keeffe in Schull in 1902. She is seen here last Sunday meeting a selective trio of “modern classics”. They’re all of a certain age, yet their combined seniority would not match the 122 years of the classic Schull cutter
They may call it the Crosshaven Traditional Boat Weekend, but if it hadn’t been for the presence of the Cornish lugger Barnabas, the traditional boats would have been on the sidelines in face of the impact of classic timber yachts…
Fergus Mason's Shipman 28 Viking sailing in Thursday, June 20th's DBSC Summer Series racing on Dublin Bay
Neither Paul O'Higgins's JPK 10.80 Rockabill VI or Chris Power-Smith's J122 Aurelia were on the DBSC race track last night as both will race Round Ireland on Saturday. Still, Rockabill VI remains four points clear at the top of the Dublin Bay…
A 41-boat fleet is contesting the 2024 Flying Fifteen British Isles Championships at Strangford Lough Yacht Club this week including local pair Hammy Baker and Peter Chamberlain sailing 'Fer Fox Sake'
Two wins from two races sailed today at the Flying Fifteen British Isles Championships 2024 at Strangford Lough Yacht Club for Graham Vials and Chris Turner in Floaty McFloatface moves the Derwent Reservoir and Lyme Regis Sailing Club pair to…
Racing at the Squib UK National Championships on the Firth of Forth, the Lough Derg YC and Royal St George YC entry of Vincent Delany and Josh St John to windward in Femme Fatale number 24, Royal North of Ireland YC's Ross Nolan and Gordon Patterson in number 820, Quickstep III and to leeward David Pinner and Jonno Baker's Discord, number 91
With only one race on Wednesday, in order to achieve the advertised programme, Howard Steavenson event PRO called for three races (in a wind varying from 4 to 10 knots) for the Squib fleet today at the UK British National…
Scroll down for the 2024 Round Ireland Race Tracker
The biennial 704–mile SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race race around our island home gets underway at Wicklow Harbour at 1 pm on Saturday, June 22nd. Follow the race on the live Yellowbrick tracker below Read all the latest Round Ireland 2024…
The R44 fleet tied up in Marstrand due to strong winds
With near gale force on shore westerly winds kicking up a violent sea state, the first day of racing at the 44Cup Marstrand was called off on Thursday. At the 1000 skipper’s briefing PRO Maria Torrijo put the nine teams…
5o5 dinghy sailing at Monkstown Bay Sailing Club in Cork Harbour
Twenty-four dinghies are entered in Monkstown Bay Sailing Club’s Class 1 dinghies June League. Racing in Cork Harbour is on Tuesdays and Fridays. The 505 crew of Brian Jones and Gary Frost are leading the class after five races, with…
Cove Sailing Club’s Wednesday night Dinghy League sailed around Spike Island in Cork Harbour
Owen O’Connell leads Cove Sailing Club’s Wednesday night Dinghy League, racing his TR3. He is on 10 points, ahead of Rankin No.12, sailed by Maurice and Frances Kidney, on 12. David Radley is third on 15. Seventeen boats have raced…
Oireachtas Committee in session on inshore fisheries
The Irish South & West Fish Producers Organisation based in Castletownbere, West Cork, has called on the Minister for the Marine to meet with it to discuss a Liquidity Scheme to assist the struggling inshore sector and ensure its very…
The rare sight of two classic Fred Shepherd designs together - Maybird (1937) and Aline IV (1919) in Crosshaven at the weekend
The past weekend’s weather experience of “Four Seasons In A Day” may have disrupted the sailing programme for the Crosshaven Traditional Boat Weekend, but some interesting boats had made their way to the venue beforehand, and classic yacht connoisseurs had…
No. 52 Puffin Seán and Heather Craig cross the line to win race one in the weekly Wednesday night DBSC Water Wag racing at Dun Laoghaire Harbour followed by no. 38 Swift, Guy & Jacqui Kilroy and no. 49 Hilda, Conor and Jess Bryne
24 Water Wags turned out for the AIB DBSC race on Wednesday evening  June 19th at Dun Laoghaire.  Race Officer Tadgh Donnelly set a three round windward leeward course with a final fourth beat to finish at the weather mark…
The National Yacht Club's Shane MacCarthy and Hugh McNally are the top Irish performers after the opening two races of the Flying Fifteen British Isles Championships 2024 at Strangford Lough Yacht Club. The Dun Laoghaire pair posted a 5 and…

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]