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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
The National Yacht Club's Finn Lynch scored an eight and a fourth to be tenth overall after day one of the Wireless ILCA7 world championships in Adelaide, Australia
The National Yacht Club's Finn Lynch scored two top-ten results in the opening races of the ILCA7 world championships in Adelaide, Australia, today to take an early lead in the Irish Olympic selection trial for Paris 2024 against rival Ewan McMahon…
The 32m Namuun (ex-Simba) from Turquoise Yachts will sail in this June's Superyacht Cup Palma
The Superyacht Cup Palma, one of the most prestigious superyacht regattas in the world, is set to welcome a fleet of impressive vessels from June 19 to 22 this year. The event, held annually in Mallorca, Spain, has always been…
A busy scene at Blessington Sailing Club as the inaugural RS Fest Incorporating RS200 and RS400 gets underway in 2023. The 2024 RS Fest takes place on Lough Derg Yacht Club.
It promises to be another bumper year for the RS Racing Classes in Ireland with all classes confirming their event calendars for 2024. The Fevas will start off the season in Greystones Sailing Club on the East coast of Ireland,…
As the Ultim Challenge leader Caudrelier is gaining even more miles on the boats behind as he approaches the longitude of Cape Leeuwin
Ultim Challenge leader Charles Caudrelier is approaching the longitude of Cape Leeuwin on the leading edge of a new front, sailing along the ZEA, which is not an easy feat. He should pass Australia's Great Cape at the end of…
Marking the Golden Anniversary, Cockle Island Boat Club has produced a branded burgee
Cockle Island Boat Club may be in the minority in Northern Ireland as it doesn’t have its own clubhouse, but for the 50 years of its existence, it has used the local Council facility, the original lifeboat house on the…
Former World silver medalist Finn Lynch is in action in Adelaide, Australia, this week at the 2024 ILCA 7 World Championships in the first of three Olympic selection trials between him and Ewan McMahon of Howth for the Irish berth at Paris 2024
Hot on the heels of the ILCA 6 World Championship held earlier this month (where Howth's Eve McMahon qualified for Paris 2024) comes the battle for the ILCA 7 world title and the first Irish Olympic sailing trial of this…
Blame from freight group’s has been put directly on the Northern Ireland Protocol for narrowing down the options of captains, as vessels get hit by storms in the Irish Sea. As far as ferries are concerned, they use the ports of Belfast, Larne and Warrenpoint.
Blame has been put directly to the Northern Ireland Protocol for narrowing down the options of captains, as vessels get hit by storms in the Irish Sea. With Storm Isha just over, the News Letter also reported the the severe…
Bill O'Hara racing as a Great Grand Master, finished eighth in the New Zealand National Laser championships in Napier
Bill O’Hara and Conrad Simpson from Ballyholme Yacht Club on Belfast Lough are used to travelling far and wide to race their Lasers and in Bill’s case, to officiate at world events, but at the moment, they are both on…
Thomas Coville, the solo skipper of Sodebo Ultim 3, has starboard foil problems in the Ultim Challenge Race round the world
Thomas Coville, the solo skipper of Sodebo Ultim 3 admitted to having suffered some technical damage last Wednesday in his Ultim Challenge Race bid. Although it is not a structural failure, Coville reports, "I am handicapped on one side, but…
Annamarie Fegan has become the first female admiral of the Royal Cork Yacht Club
History was made at the world’s oldest yacht club last night when Annamarie Fegan became the first female admiral of the Royal Cork Yacht Club. Fegan, who was a coastal rower before she took up sailing later in life, had…
Royal Cork Yacht Club’s first female admiral, Annamarie Fegan, on board her yacht Nieulargo during the club's Volvo Cork Week Regatta
“It only took 304 years…” The words of Royal Cork Yacht Club’s first female admiral, Annamarie Fegan, on her election to the post this week. As Afloat reports here, Fegan, who already broke new ground in the world’s oldest yacht…
The fleet of eleven Clipper Race yachts at the stopover in Airlie Beach, Australia as part of its 40,000nm circumnavigation
The next leg of the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race has been postponed as a tropical cyclone approaches the Queensland coast. The fleet of eleven racing yachts has been enjoying a stopover in Airlie Beach as part of its…
The skipper of Maxi Edmond de Rothschild Charles Caudrelier is expected to pass Cape Leeuwin on Wednesday and Tasmania, the gateway to the Pacific, on Thursday or Friday
Charles Caudrelier, leader of the Ultim Challenge Race round the world, is passing the NE corner of the Kerguelen Islands exclusion zone, racing on a SE’ly course at around 35kts as he plunges towards the ice exclusion zone. The skipper…
 Zoe Whitford from East Antrim Boat Club on Larne Lough is one of ten young athletes to be awarded a £500 bursary by the Mary Peters Trust
Seventeen-year-old Zoe Whitford from East Antrim Boat Club on Larne Lough is one of ten young athletes to be awarded a £500 bursary by the Mary Peters Trust. The Sports section of Local Women Magazine in Northern Ireland reports the partnership…
A Kinsale Yacht Club meeting has been scheduled for Friday, March to develop a cruising schedule for the season
Kinsale Yacht Club intends to “re-establish and grow” its Cruising Fleet this season. The County Cork club will “reinvigorate the cruising section of the club,” according to Vice Commodore Anthony O’Neill. Niall McCann will undertake co-ordination of the Cruiser Fleet.…
Royal Cork Yacht Club History Book Supplement presentation: (L to R) Kevin Lane & Sally O'Leary, Current Archives Committee, Kieran O'Connell, Admiral, Alicia St. Ledger, Author of 'A History of the Royal Cork Yacht Club', Colin Morehead, Past Admiral & Dr. T. Paul McCarthy, Past Archivist
In anticipation of the 303rd Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Royal Cork Yacht Club (RCYC) scheduled for tonight (Monday, January 22nd), the club's rich historical tapestry took centre stage this week. Dr. Alicia St Leger, Past Admiral Colin Morehead,…

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]