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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
Movanagher Lock on the Lower Bann
Waterways Ireland advises all masters of vessels on and users of the Lower Bann navigation in Northern Ireland that the installation of new lock gates at Movanagher Lock has been completed as of Wednesday 13 March and the navigation is…
Kirsten Neuschäfer receives the 2023 Blue Water Medal from CCA Commodore Jay Gowell
The 2023 Cruising Club of America (CCA) awards ceremony was held at the New York Yacht Club on Friday, March 1, highlighted by the presentation of the Blue Water Medal to solo round-the-world sailor Kirsten Neuschäfer. The prestigious Medal was…
A good haul for the North County – HYC Commodore Neil Murphy (right) ensures that Tom Fox of Rush SC went home in style
The best laid plans often go awry - despite what was set to be a great turnout for the annual Howth Yacht Club Round the Island Race last Saturday at Howth, the weather gods didn't play ball, and a decision…
Irish Sailing League logo
Steady entries are coming in for the Irish Sailing League with the inaugural event coming over the weekend of 20-21 April, as Kenneth Rumball writes. We are delighted to welcome two more clubs to the entry list who committed over…
Aerial view of the Royal Cork Yacht Club
Volvo Cork Week 2024 entries have been steadily climbing with a huge variety of boats and sailors from Ireland and all over the world expected to be competing at the Royal Cork’s famous regatta from 15-19 July. The championship fleet…
Irish youth sailors at the Royal Cork in Crosshaven
The early bird entry for the Waterman Kelly Irish Sailing Youth Nationals 2024 is closing later this week at midnight on Friday 15 March. This year’s event will be hosted by the the Royal Cork Yacht Club in Crosshaven from…
Gavan Murphy (ILCA 7) working hard to maintain his advantage on the water
Despite a horrible forecast of wind which caused Howth’s Round the Island Race to be cancelled (on the Saturday) and huge seas in Dun Laoghaire on Saturday, the DMYC dinghy Frostbites, sponsored by Viking Marine took place on Sunday afternoon…
The Captain Desmond Fortune “Founders Award” for the highest placing Venture Scout was won by Conor Brosnan from 7th Port (Howth) Sea Scouts. The Captain Cian Timmons memorial trophy for the highest placing Rover Scout was won by Cormac Eason from 9th Port (Malahide) Sea Scouts. The event included a practical boat handling exercise in Malahide Marina, with Dan Clohessy from 9th Port (Malahide) achieving the highest marks in this section, receiving the Eoghan Lavelle Cox’n prize.
The 2024 Sea Scout Master Mariner competition took place in Dublin on 10 March. This maritime skills event has been running since 1995 and is supported by the Irish Institute of Master Mariners. This year’s event had a focus on…
Malahide Yacht Club Invites Entries for March 23rd “March Hare Regatta”
Malahide Yacht Club is inviting entries for the March Hare Regatta on Saturday, March 23rd, 2024. This open event will feature ILCA/Laser, Optimist, and PY class races on the beautiful Broadmeadows Estuary. "Sailors of all ages are welcome to participate…
Anthony Marchand (Actual Ultim 3) Finishes Fourth in Ultim Challenge
French solo skipper Anthony Marchand took fourth place on Ultim Challenge this afternoon when he sailed the ULTIM Actual Ultim 3 across the finish line off Brest at 14:08:21hrs UTC. Marchand, who turned 39 years old during this first ever solo…
Royal Cork Yacht Club's Denis Byrne was elected Commodore of the Irish Cruiser Racing Association at the 2024 national cruiser conference and AGM and will lead the national cruiser-racer body for the next two years
The Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA) has laid out its plans for the forthcoming 2024 season, and it features a packed calendar of events that will, among other things, produce the ICRA Boat of the Year 2024 by the end…
Irish solo sailor Tom Dolan: “Staying fresh, hungry and focused are my targets this season.”
Irish solo offshore sailor, Tom Dolan, is starting his 2024 racing season with a new approach. Rather than spending most of his time on the water, the skipper of Smurfit Kappa-Kingspan has prioritised his physical and mental preparation. Dolan is…
The Sydney Hobart Yacht Race will be a Rolex race for another decade thanks to a new sponsorship deal that extends naming rights to the event through to the 2033 edition
Rolex has renewed its sponsorship of the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race for another ten years, extending its naming rights to the event through to the 2033 edition. The announcement, say the sponsors, is a testament to the brand's privileged relationship…
The AIB DBSC Spring Chicken fleet enjoy some ideal sailing conditions in the penultimate race of the 2024 series. The final race was cancelled in strong easterly winds on Dublin Bay
Strong easterly winds and big seas may have prevented the final race of the AIB-sponsored DBSC Spring Chicken Series from sailing on Sunday morning (March 10) – the first cancellation of the six-race mixed cruiser and one design league –…
Erwan Fischer and Clément Pequin make history by becoming the first ever French sailors to win the 49er World Championships
Giving the host nation a huge boost just months before the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Erwan Fischer and Clément Pequin of France emerged victorious in the 49er World Championships held in Lanzarote on Sunday (10 March). Odile van Aanholt and Annette Duetz of the…
“A History of Lifeboats in Dublin Bay”, an illustrated lecture by Cormac Lowth, takes place in the Maritime Museum, Haigh Terrace, Dun Laoghaire on March 12th at 1.30pm.
While the RNLI celebrates its bicentenary, the first lifeboats in Dublin Bay date back to the early 19th century and were run by the Port Corporation. This is the subject of a talk by maritime historian and researcher Cormac Lowth…

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]