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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
King One Gets off to Strong Start in Half Ton Cup
Ireland's only representative in the Half Ton Cup has opened his account with a third placing, David Cullen's King One from Howth Yacht Club was vying for the lead in the first race yesterday and with an early start this…
100 Days until Olympic Qualification Begins at Perth 2011
For all the fine performances this year from Ireland's Olympic squad a place on the start line of next year's Olympic regatta is contingent on a result at the next ISAF World championships in 100 days time. It's a do…
Racing Round Up; Toppers, Optimists, SB3s, DBSC, Fastnet, IRC, Star
Birmingham's Venables Wins but Cork's Crosbie Takes Third at Topper Worlds, Donnelly and Clapp clinch Optimist titles at Howth. Sharkbait took another bite out of the SB3s on Belfast Lough. Wicklow Lifeboat Tows a Racing Yacht to Safety After Rope…
Sharkbait Takes Another Bite at Royal Ulster.
Howth's Ben Duncan sailing Sharbait has etched another victory in the SB3 class following a weekend of very up and down conditions with some sizeable shifts and changes in pressure at the SB3 Northern Championships at Royal Ulster Yacht Club.…
Tough Year for Irish Yachts in the Fastnet Race
It might have been the year that records tumbled  but 2011 wasn't a good year for the Irish contingent in the Fastnet yacht race. There were a dozen Irish boats or boats of Irish interest at least but all of…
Lively Lady Wins DBSC Race on IRC and ECHO
Derek Martin's Beneteau 44.7 Lively Lady produced wins on IRC and ECHO in Dublin Bay Sailing Club's race this afternoon in medium winds that featured a long spinnaker run the length of Dublin Bay. Martin's Royal Irish club mate George…
Donnelly and Clapp clinch Optimist titles at Howth
After 12 races in five days in varying conditions, Sean Donnelly of the National YC and English visitor Max Clapp of the Royal Southern YC wrapped up the senior and junior titles respectively in the Image Skincare Irish Optimist National…
Boat Builder Celebrates Fastnet Success
Competing against one of the largest and most diverse fleets assembled in the history of offshore yachting, the Rolex Fastnet race saw the Australian boatbuilder McConaghy's built ICAP Leopard 3, the Reichel Pugh 65 Vanquish (crewed by the young American…
Fastnet Race Winners Collect Just Deserts
The prizegiving for the Rolex Fastnet Race took place this evening at the historic Royal Citadel on Plymouth's famous Hoe. Dating back to 1660s and standing on the site of the fort built in the time of Sir Francis Drake,…
Leaders maintain advantage at Optimist Nationals in Howth
With just two races left in the Image Skincare Irish Optimist Championships at Howth Yacht Club, the status quo remains at the top of both the senior and junior rankings, the results of two races on Friday making no difference…
Birmingham's Venables Wins, Cork's Crosbie Takes Third at Topper Worlds
15 year old Matt Venables from Sutton Coal Fields Yacht Club in Birmingham proved that he is a potential Olympian with his dominant win of the very successful Sovereign Ski Topper World Championships which finished in Dun Laoghaire today writes…
British Olympic Gold Medallists to Contest Dun Laoghaire Event
Ireland will have two entries in a fleet of 30 plus boats for the Star European Championships at the Royal St. George Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire in two weeks time. Olympic trial winners Royal Cork's Peter O'Leary crewed by…
One Third of Fastnet Fleet Cross the Line Within Two Hours
A shut-down of the wind and a foul tide just short of the finish line made for a challenging few hours for the Royal Ocean Racing Club race team as an armada of Rolex Fastnet Race competitors descended on the…
School of Dolphins Help Toppers on Their Way
Sailors arrived for day four of the 2011 Sovereign Ski Topper World Championship at the National Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire to a flat sea and no wind writes Phil Harland. With increasing cloud cover there was no sea breeze…
D-Tox on Form in O'Leary Insurance League
There was a nice sized fleet sailing in Cork Harbour last night for the third race of Royal Cork's 'O'Leary Insurances League', a race that was even calmer than last Thursday writes our Cork Harbour Correspondent. The start was about…
Howth's King One Among 38 Entries to Contest Half ton Classics Cup
Dave Cullen's King One is Ireland's single entry in to this year's Half Ton Classic Cup 2011. With 38 entries from seven nations already confirmed the Cup to be hosted by the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club, Cowes from Sunday 21st…

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]