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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
Fireball Worlds Final Day Thriller
#FIREBALL  – Tom Gillard and Sam Brearey, GBR 15041, are the 2012 Fireball world Champions after the 2012 title fight went all the way down to the last race. Race Officer Robin Olsen and his team had a challenging day…
Sophie Sails into 13th Place at Optimist World Champs
#oppiewordsnz – A 14th and a 42nd scored in the penultimate rounds of the Optimist worlds today drop Ireland's Sophie Browne from ninth to 13th overall. Browne needs to move up ten points with a single day's racing left to…
World Speed Record for Thompson
#julesvernetrophy – As the only British crew member on-board, Brian Thompson, today clocked up two major records as the maxi trimaran, Banque Populaire V, crossed the Jules Verne Trophy finish line near Brest, France this evening. Thompson is part of…
Fireballs Enjoy Penultimate Day Duel in the Sun and Waves
# FiREBALL – As the report that precedes this one suggested, the penultimate day of the Fireball Worlds in Mandurah saw a duel in the sun and waves between the young British combination Tom Gillard and Sam Brearey and the…
Festival Feel for Scotland's Biggest Sailing Series
#scottishseries – The organisers of  Scotland's bigest sailnig event, the Brewin Dolphin Scottish Series at Tarbert have announced changes on and off the water at this year's event, creating a festival of sailing for competitors and spectators alike. The Clyde…
Browne Moves Back into the Top Ten in New Zealand
#optiworldsnz – Support from home including Volvo Ocean Race sailor Damian Foxall urged Sophie Browne back in to the top ten of the Optimist World Championships at Napier, New Zealand today. The 14 year old from Tralee maintained her position at…
Banque Populaire V Takes Jules Verne Trophy, Smashing World Record
#WORLD RECORD - France's Banque Populaire V has smashed the record for the fastest yacht sailing around the world, shaving nearly three days off the previous best. BBC News reports that the yacht's 14-man crew crossed the line at 45…
Mayo's Noelle Doran is December's Sailor of the Month
#SAILOROFTHEMONTH – Noelle Doran of Mayo is the latest Afloat.ie/Irish Independent "Sailor of the Month" in recognition of her December achievement in being the fastest woman in the world in 2011. Her sustained speed of 36.88 knots along 500 metres…
Clipper Secures Chinese Entry Until 2016 in Major Sponsorship Deal
#CLIPPER – Clipper Ventures Plc announced at the London Boat Show today that it has signed a major sponsorship deal with Qingdao, host of the sailing events of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, to continue its participation in the Clipper…
Optimist Class Seek New Talent in Baltimore
#optimist – Impressed with the sailing success of 14-year-old Sophie Browne in New Zealand this week? Could you be the next to represent Ireland on the world stage? The Irish Optimist class is making every effort to bring on as…
Irish Sailing Association Seeks Revised Fee Structure
#ISA – The Irish Sailing Association (ISA) is convening an extraordinary general meeting to propose a revised membership fee structure next month. The introduction of the 'joint membership scheme' in 1993 fundamentally changed the representative base of the Association and…
International Flavour Expected at 2012 Mitsubishi Youth Championships
#YOUTH SAILING – 400 Irish youth sailors get the opportunity to fight for a place to represent Ireland at April's Misubishi Youth National championships on Dublin Bay.  The massive junior event is a Test event for organisers of the ISAF…
2016 Olympic Women's Skiff and Mixed Multihull Evaluation Underway
#SKIFF – ISAF has announced the venue and date for the equipment evaluation for the 2016 Olympic Women's Skiff and Mixed Multihull. The evaluation will be held from 17 to 25 March 2012 at Prince Felipe High Performance Sailing Centre,…
Cull heads Howth Laser Frostbite into second series
#LASER – In one of the most competitive Howth Yacht Club Laser Frostbites in many years, Ronan Cull ended the first series as clear winner, discarding a second place in the 11-race programme. Conditions were very consistent throughout the series,…
Shuffling the Fireball Pack in Mandurah
#FIREBALL – Another two races, 5 & 6, were sailed in the Fireball Worlds in Mandurah today, with the end result that the order of the top five changed. The report on the Yachts and Yachting website describes the wind…
New Rig For Sanya (Photos)
#VOLVOOCEANRACE – The Discover Ireland backed Team Sany entry in the Volvo Ocean Race has been busy discovering Madagascar over the past few weeks as they awaited new rigging for their stricken yacht that pulled into the port of Talanero…

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]