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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
Derry-Londonderry Arrives in Western Australia
#CLIPPER ROUND THE WORLD – Derry-Londonderry has arrived in Geraldton Western Australia at the end of the 4,800-mile Race 4 from Cape Town. The team finished in ninth place, just one-tenth of a mile ahead of Celtic rivals, Edinburgh Inspiring…
Green Dragon Crew Say 'Ola' from Alicante!
#VOLVO OCEAN RACE – Ireland's Ocean Race Green Dragon is basking in Spanish sunshine and settling into her new role as a 'legend' as our photo from Alicante shows below. The photo was taken before she left the dock for…
Sail Training Fleet to Race to Weymouth and Portland
#TALL SHIPS – A large fleet of Sail Training vessels will race to Portland on the UK south coast in the summer of 2012. On the second weekend in June, 300 young people from Dorset and London will gather in…
Call for Irish SB3s to Head for Scotland in 2012
#SB3 - As the Dublin Bay Sailing Club SB3 class debates the merits of Saturday versus Sunday club racing with a contracted fleet size next season there has been a call from the North for Irish crews to head to…
ISORA 2012 Looking at Trackers and 'Virtual' Marks
#IRISH SEA – The Irish Sea Offshore Racing Association (ISORA) is pushing ahead with plans to incorporate 'virtual' marks into at least some of it's offshore programme in 2012. Afloat.ie reported on the prospect last September. The moves come as…
Could Green Dragon be Ireland's Next Youth Boat?
#VOLVO OCEAN RACE – Plans for the future of Ireland's Round the World racer Green Dragon are still up in the air since the €2million high tech sloop failed to sell after the last race two years ago. Support is…
Galway Revives Ancient 'Royal' Yacht Club
#YACHT CLUB – Volvo Ocean Race Organisers in Galway have revived a 120-year old Yacht Club with 'Royal' connections. The 'Royal Galway Yacht Club' (RGYC) was established in 1892 but had not been heard of for quite some time. But…
Model Yacht Racing Series Underway in Dun Laoghaire
#MODEL YACHTS – Dun Laoghaire's Winter Model Yacht RC Laser sailing programme got off to an enthusiastic if somewhat wet start on the Bank Holiday Monday. The impromptu gathering was intended to dust off the cobwebs but instead proved a…
Marine Minister to Promote Irish Sailing at Volvo Ocean Race
#VOLVO OCEAN RACE Minister for Marine Simon Coveney travels to Alicante, Spain this week to promote Irish sailing in the build up to Saturday's start of the Volvo Ocean Race (VOR). Coveney will officiate at an International press and VIP…
Volvo Ocean Race to Start in Alicante Again in 2014
# VOLVO OCEAN RACE The 12th edition of the Volvo Ocean Race will take place in 2014-15, starting once again in Alicante, after Volvo Car Corporation and Volvo Group reaffirmed their long-term commitment to the world's premier offshore sailing event…
Triumphant final day of O’Flynn Exhams Solicitors Autumn Regatta
Where to start and what to say. There is so much to say about Saturday, one hardly knows where to start but we will go back to the start of the day when the organisers thought they would not have…
Team Sanya Take 4th Place In The First In-port Race
The day started with rain and gusty wind but that did not deter the teams, guests and fans to support the boats as they left the dock in Alicante at 1130am this morning. By the time racing was ready to…
Ireland Stage last day comeback and take Bronze at Student worlds
The 2011 Student Yachting World Cup came to a close yesterday after three more races. The winds were light giving the fleet a different challenge from what they had encountered for most of the week. The previous day had seen…
ICRA Sets a Course for Dun Laoghaire Conference
The annual cruiser racer Think-In will be held in Dun Laoghaire for the first time next month when the Irish Cruiser Racer Association (ICRA) Conference takes place at the Royal Marine hotel on Saturday, November 26th. Items on the agenda…
Junior All Ireland championships Postponed
A forecast for Southerly gales has led the Irish Sailing Association to postpone tomorrow's All Ireland junior sailing championships at the Royal St. George Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire. 18 juniors were set to sail in firefly dinghies. The new…
Irish Sailors Get Ready for First VOR In-Port Races
The first of the in-port races ahead of the Volvo Ocean Race start tomorrow in Alicante – and top Irish sailors are among the six teams competing. http://afloat.ie/sail/events/volvo-ocean-race/ Wexford’s Justin Slattery is on Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, which is competing…

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]