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Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

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
'Cinnamon Girl'  Goes Sailing
Royal Cork's Cian McCarthy has launched his Class 40 yacht in preparation for Route de Chocolat, a transatlantic race from France to Mexico. After initial trials the boat, the first of a new design from Merfyn Owen and a sistership…
Dun Laoghaire's Annaliese Murphy , competing in the Laser Radial class, is in ninth place overall at the end of day two of the Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta. The Under 21 World Champion, who won Afloat's Sailor of the…
Round Ireland 2010 adds inshore race
The 30th anniversary of the Round Ireland Race gets a shake-up next June with Wicklow organisers set to run an inshore race for competitors prior to the 704-mile circumnavigation on Sunday June 20th.The change in format has been announced on…
21 Irish sailors have travelled to Weymouth, which will be the home of the 2012 Olympic Sailing Regatta. They are competing, in the Sail for Gold Regatta (14th – 19th September 2009), across 5 different Olympic classes (Star, Radial, 49er,…
'Tsunami' Is the 2009 ISORA Champion
The last race of the 2009 series at the weekend, from Pwhelli to Howth decided the Overall ISORA Champion for 2009. The National Yacht Club and Beneteau First design boats took the first three places with “Tsunami”, Vincent Farrell’s First…
Light Airs for First HYC Autumn race
Autumn league – race Number 1: The weather forecast for the first race in the 2009 Howth Yacht Club Autumn League, jointly sponsored by Crystal Holidays, Irish Life Investment Managers and Today FM, was as accurate as it gets –…
Asgard - an unhappy anniversary
A year after Asgard II sank Tom MacSweeney's RTE One Seascapes programme last Friday night featured the unhappy anniversary of the sinking of the National Sail Training Vessel. A programme podcast is here and the Asgard story is the first…
Byrne wins Dragon East Coasts
Only one point separated Martin Byrne from Andrew Craig after a light air East Coast Dragon Championships on Dublin Bay. Third was Neil Hegarty. The top three competitors, in a fleet of 13, all hailing from the host Royal St.…
Cotter Clinches Maxi Title
After five splendid racing days with stable conditions featuring north to northeasterly winds, sunshine, blue skies and choppy seas, the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup 2009 has drawn to a close.  Organized by the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda in conjunction with…
Wow in top form in DBSC

Wow in top form in DBSC

13th September 2009 DBSC
George Sisk's WOW from the Royal Irish YC was in top form for the light northerly winds and the third last Saturday race of the Dublin Bay Sailing Club season. Filled with sails the bay was also playing host to…
Cork Sets Sail Round The World
Today Sunday 13 September the 10 yachts in the Clipper Round the World Race departed from Hull and Humber with the Cork Clipper in the lead. The race started at 1400 off Hull with Cork second on the start line…
Apthorp lifts FF British title
Flying fifteen Irish Championships: British visitor Charles Apthorp lifted the Irish title this afternoon at the National YC following a light air series where winds on Dublin Bay never exceeded six knots. Apthorp of Hayling Island SC, a former world…
Winning streak ends but Whisper still leads
PORTO CERVO, ITALY (11 September 2009). The fourth and penultimate race day of the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup brought some surprises as the winning streaks of Roma – Aniene (ITA) and Whisper (IRL), in the Racing/Cruising and Mini Maxi Racing/Cruising…
Ireland enter New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup
Two Irish Clubs are entered in to New York's newest sailing competition that sets sail next week. It will be reminiscent of Newport’s America’s Cup days when 19 yacht club teams from 14 nations descend on this “City by the…
Fifty SB3s heading for Cork
Local Sailors Killian and Ronan Collins will be among the front runners at the The Laser SB3 National Championship to be held in the Royal Cork Yacht Club from the 18th to the 20th of September. A competitive fleet of…
Cotter continues to  lead in Italian waters
Just past the halfway stage in the 2009 Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup and the frontrunners are beginning to show their colours. The jostling for pole position is entering the decisive phase. Only two days of racing left and if you…

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]