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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
Figaro Sails out, Toppers Sail in to the National Yacht Club
Just 8 hours after National Yacht Club Commodore Paul Barrington bade farewell to the 47 brave Solitaire sailors starting their gruelling 420 mile sail back to France, he was raising the curtain on the Sovereign Ski Topper World Championship –…
Byrne Retains Irish Dragon Title at Kinsale
Martin Byrne retained his title as National Dragon Champion in Kinsale last weekend, adding to his Edinburgh Cup victory last month in Abersoch writes Tim Pearson. Byrne, with crew Adam Winkelmann and Pedro Andrades, was pushed hard by Jay Bourke…
The Poet-adventurer Theo Dorgan comes to the RSt. George Yacht Club, Dun Laoghaire as an after dinner speaker to discuss his recent book, Time on the Ocean. This is an inspired description of how Dorgan flew to southern Chile and…
Local Duo Take Feva National Title in Cork Harbour (Photos here)
A total of 30 boats competed for the title of RS Feva National and Open Champion in Cork Harbour this weekend. The overall winner, with five first places, was RCYC's David Whitaker with Jil McGinley crewing. SCROLL DOWN FOR BOB…
Clipper fleet Bound for Rio de Janeiro
One of the first big decisions the teams had to make on the race to Rio de Janeiro was how to navigate their way round the Canary Islands. This morning's position reports reveal that all ten have gone west of…
Figaro Says Goodbye to Dún Laoghaire (Photos Here)
At precisely 12:00 on Sunday 14th August, the Race Committee fired the start signal of the third leg of the Solitaire du Figaro, 477 miles from Dún Laoghaire to Les Sables d'Olonne, as public crowded the pier to wave goodbye…
Largest Ever Fleet Start the Fastnet Race (Photos here)
The record-sized Rolex Fastnet Race fleet set sail from Cowes in classic conditions - a beat westward up the Solent in a building west-southwesterly and sunshine, but with an ominous looking cloud line over the mainland. SCROLL DOWN FOR RICK…
Robinson's Whiterock is Top Shipman on Dublin Bay
The Royal Irish Shipman Whiterock skippered by Henry Robinson was the class winner of Saturday's Dublin Bay Sailing Club's (DBSC) race. Second was the National Yacht Club's Curraglas (John Masterson) and third was Christine Heath's Gusto. Full results from Saturday's…
Norway's Oldest A-Class Tallship Sets Sail for Dublin
At nearly 100 years old, Norway's oldest tallship, the sail training three-masted steel barque Statsraad Lehmkuhl is to call to Dublin Port next week, writes Jehan Ashmore. Built in 1914, the 321" long vessel is also the largest, compared to the…
Record-Breaking Conditions Ahead for Fastnet Race
The largest, most diverse fleet of racing boats ever in offshore yachting set sail this morning in the Rolex Fastnet Race. http://www.afloat.ie/sail/events/fastnet-race/ The biennial flagship event of the Royal Ocean Racing Club, a tradition since 1925, will take the fleet…
No Medals But Plenty of Confidence for 2012
Margins tightened for Ireland's top performers right at the end of the Weymouth test event and despite holding second overall in the Laser Radial and Star fleets for much of the event Team Ireland walked way from Dorset without any…
Fastnet Race - Not Just a Record Fleet, it's a Fantastic Fleet
With just over two days left until the start of the Rolex Fastnet Race, a press conference was held yesterday in the Sir Max Aitken Museum in Cowes on the Isle of Wight. It was a case of standing room…
200 Optimists for Nationals at Howth
200 young Optimist sailors from over 15 Irish clubs (including 24 overseas entries from five other nations) will descend on Howth Yacht Club next week for the Image Skincare Optimist National Championships for a 12-race series over five days. The…
Sign up and We'll Send You This Weekend's Irish Sailing News
Sign up for Monday's Afloat e-bulletin (see past editions here) for all this weekend's Irish sailing news, pics and results straight to your inbox. Monday's edition includes photos and pics from Sunday's Figaro departure from Dun Laoghaire and the start…
Safran is One of Six IMOCA 60s to Tackle the Fastnet Race
To the south of Ireland, on an isolated rock some five miles from land, the Fastnet Lighthouse is a mythical mark for the world's sailors. Created in 1925, the Rolex Fastnet Race brings together this summer 323 boats measuring between…
Cavatina is White Sail Winner
The Cork harbour fleet has started to build again with a number of boats having returned from a successful Calves Week writes our Cork Harbour Correspondent. The second race in the Royal Cork 'O'Leary Insurances League' was a bit warmer…

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]