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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
Book Your Berth for the Olympic Regatta
#WEYMOUTH – Applications for booking visitor berthing in Weymouth Harbour and anchorage in Weymouth Bay during the sailing events of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games are now open. It will not be possible for visiting boats to enter…
49er Duo Stay on Course for Qualification
#PERTH 2011 – Light winds did 49er pair Ryan Seaton and Matt McGovern no harm in Perth today. The Irish pair scored a 7th, 11th and 12th in their three races and now lie 15th overall. It was not as…
Black Flag Setback for O'Leary/Burrows in Perth
#PERTH 2011 –There has been a setback to the Peter O'Leary and David Burrows Star keelboat campaign today following their disqualification from the sixth race when the Irish crew were lying second. Star keelboats line up for a world championship start…
Seaton and McGovern Eighth in Perth 49er Championship
#PERTH2011 – Although Ryan Seaton and Matt McGovern are discarding 12th scored in today's sixth race of the 49er world championships, the Belfast lough pairing stay solidly in the top ten overall. Their first time bid for qualifcation at next…
O'Leary and Burrows Lie a Single Point off Third
#PERTH2011 – Keelboat pair Peter O'Leary and David Burrows are in a three way tie vying for third place overall after five races sailed at the Star world Championships in Perth today. The sole Irish contenders in the 42-boat fleet…
Rumball and Moran Win Fireball Frostbite Race
#FIREBALL – The Committee Boat for the Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club Frostbites was located at the end of the east pier yesterday  to set a course with a wind bearing of 260º. However, local vagaries in the wind reduced…
49er Duo Seaton/McGovern Start Solidly in Perth
#PERTH2011 – Ireland's Ryan Seaton and Matt McGovern are at the top of the 49er high performance dinghy fleet in Perth today having finished second, fourth and 11th in the first three races of their World Championshipsto be fifth overall.…
Third Place in Race Four Keeps O'Leary/Burrows in Top Ten
#PERTH2011–Peter O'Leary and David Burrows are back in the top ten of the ISAF Star World Championships in Perth today after briefly dropping to 13th from fifth overall, the result of a poor third race where they scored 33rd in…
O'Leary and Burrows Straight into Third Place
#PERTH2011 – Ireland's Peter O'Leary and David Burrows have sailed straight to the top of the Star keelboat leaderboard after the first day's racing of the ISAF world Championships today. The Cork-Dublin pairing are third overall having counted an 8…
Annalise Ends Perth in Sixth, A Personal Best
#PERTH2011 – Annalise Murphy's World Championships ended in Perth today with a personal best result of sixth overall for the Dun Laoghaire single-hander. She also takes home the all important ticket to the London 2012 regatta, the first Irish sailor…
Ainslie Goes Overboard in Perth
#PERTH2011 – British Olympic poster boy Ben Ainslie has been disqualified from both of today's Finn races in Perth, dashing any chance of a much sought after world title in the run up to the Olympics. The three time Olympic…
O'Leary and Burrows Ready for First Gun in Perth
#PERTH2012 – Hotly tipped Irish keelboat duo Peter O'Leary and David Burrows race tomorrow for Olympic qualification and world championship honours in the first race of the Star keelboat worlds, the second week of the ISAF World  Championships in Perth.…
Focus Now on Barcelona as Owens and Flannigan Miss the Cut
#PERTH2011 – Double Olympian Ger Owens and his crew Scott Flannigan can still qualify for the London Olympics in the 470 class but to do so they will need to be in top form next May in Barcelona having missed…
Annalise Back in Medal Contention with Two More Race Wins
#PERTH2011 – Irish sailor Annalise Murphy needs to beat America's Paige Railey by at least four places to win a bronze medal in tommorrow's Laser Radial final following a stunning performance in Perth today with two further race wins at…
ICRA Hears Appeals for Greater Participation in Sailing
#SAILING – The tenth Annual ICRA Conference took place in Dun Laoghaire for the first time on 26th November in the same year ICRA was awarded the Mitsubishi Club of the Year trophy writes ICRA Commdore Barry Rose. It was…
Annalise Murphy Race Win Video
A breathaking 63–metre lead by Annalise Murphy in the second race of the ISAF worlds in Perth this week is captured on youtube (below), The 16-knot performance by the 6 foot 1inch Dun Laoghaire single-hander is well worth a peek.…

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]