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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
#WIORA– As a flagship event to mark their 50th year of sailing on the Shannon Estuary,  Foynes Yacht Club are setting an aggressive target to attract 50 boats to next year’s West of Ireland Offshore Racing Association (WIORA) sailing championships…
Dublin Bay Issues Details of Sailing's Youth Worlds 2012
#SAILING-Dublin Bay organisers have published detials of next year's 2012 ISAF Youth Sailing World Championships that will be staged on the captial's waters, one of Dublin's biggest sporting events in 2012. The Notice of Race for the 2012 ISAF Youth…
Irish Olympic Crews Seeking Qualification in Perth
#OLYMPIC–Ireland takes its place among the world's sailing nations in Perth, Western Australia this weekend for the start of a two-week long sailing championships that is a do or die regatta for Ireland's Olympic squad intent on competing at the…
Royal Cork Launch New Club Wine
#Wine–Royal Cork Yacht Club has taken delivery of its own "Royal Cork Private Reserve" wine. It's described as 'a fine quality Bordeaux red wine with an exclusive "Royal Cork" label'. To celebrate its launch, diners at tomorrow's Goose dinner will…
J24 World Champs for Howth in 2013
#J24–Howth Yacht Club will stage the J24 World Championships  from 22nd to 30th August 2013. This follows the successful staging of the class European championships at the club in September. Irish boats will be required to qualify for the event.
Sailing the Bay of Biscay
#CRUISING–The Cruising Association, Britain's organisation for cruising sailors, is opening its doors to non-members in January for a guide to sailing the many stunning destinations in the Bay of Biscay. The CA says the area has an unfair reputation for…
Team Sanya Hitches a Ride to Capetown (Photo)
#SANYA– Definitely not as intended but neverthless on her way to Cape Town as our picture shows. The Discover Ireland backed Sanya entry in the Volvo Ocean Race has been successfully repaired and is ready to joing the other six…
Competitive Laser Frostbite series at Howth reaches half-way stage
#LASER–With the first series of the Howth Yacht Club Laser Frostbites reaching the half-way stage, Ronan Cull, who currently tops the National rankings, has a clear lead overall. The 52-boat fleet racing this year has a wide range of age…
Third Generation Clipper Race Fleet Takes Shape
#CLIPPER–The first of a new twelve-strong fleet of Clipper 70s has been released from its mould as the construction of an expanded fleet for the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race progresses on schedule ahead of its completion next year.…
Round Ireland Yacht Race 2012 Takes Shape
#SAILING–Wicklow Sailing Club's Round Ireland Yacht Race departs from Wicklow Bay at 12 noon on Sunday 24th June 2012, leaving Ireland and all its islands to starboard. 2012 mark's the 32nd anniversary of Ireland's premier off-shore sailing event, organised by…
Irish Fireballers Celebrate Season of Highs
#FIREBALL – New Irish Fireball Class Chairman, Neil Colin (14775), was Master of Ceremonies when the Irish Fireball fleet celebrated the (regatta) season just concluded with its prize-giving dinner hosted by Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club on Friday evening 25th…
Howth Plans Big Event for 2012 ICRA Nationals
#SAILING–Any Sailing Club with ambitions of staging the Irish Cruiser Racer Association (ICRA) National Championships will have to look as far ahead as 2015. ICRA – the 2011 Club of the Year – laid out its stall until 2014 at…
Storm Wins ICRA Boat of Year Award
As predicted in Afloat's online reader poll Howth Yacht Storm (Pat Kelly) has lifted the Irish Cruiser Racer Association's Boat of the Year award at this afternoon's ICRA conference in Dun Laoghaire. Among other wins, the J109 design counted five…
Royal Alfred Yacht Club Revive the Superleague for 2012
#SAILING–A new sailing league for 2012 to bring an 'extra focus' to yacht racing in Dublin Bay was the talk of last night's Royal Alfred Yacht Club (RAYC) black-tie awards dinner in Dun Laoghaire. The RAYC racing club will re-launch the 'Superleague' concept…
All Ireland Sailing Championships Postponed Again Due to Weather
Tomorrow's all Ireland sailing championships has been postponed again due to a high wind forecast Following a meeting with the PRO and club Sailing Manager the conclusion was reluctantly reached that sailing would not be possible tomorrow (Saturday 26th). Weather…
Belfast to Welcome Tall Ships in 2015
#TALL SHIPS - Ireland will be getting a double dose of the Tall Ships Races this decade as Belfast has been chosen to host the first leg of the event in 2015, BBC News reports. http://afloat.ie/sail/tall-ships http://afloat.ie/sail/tall-ships http://www.afloat.ie/port-news/belfast-lough/ Belfast City…

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]