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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
White Whisper is Sole Irish Entry in Atlantic Rally
One Irish boat will race in this year's Atlantic Rally for Cruisers. Sean Hehir's White Whisper,  a Grampian 34, is entered in a fleet of 205 yachts drawn from 28 nations. The ARC 2010 fleet leave Las Palmas for Rodney Bay in…
Members of Ireland's biggest sail training organisation, Glenans Irish Sailing Club have voted unanimously to reintegrate with the French-based sailing association Les Glenans.The reintegration will reunite two associations which share the common aim of bringing people together through a love…
Last weekend's The Irish Team Racing Association National Team Racing Championships attracted it's largest entry for many years, with 21 teams registered. The event was hosted by the Fastnet Marine and Outdoor Education Centre in Schull, West Cork. Four teams travelled…
Emmy award winning actor Eddie Izzard is to star in a sailing remake of "Treasure Island" which will feature the 145-foot tall-ship 'Earl of Pembroke' which arrived into Dun Laoghaire Harbour yesterday, writes Jehan Ashmore. The British comedian, voice-over artist…
WIORA Grant €1000 to Royal Western Yacht Club
At the recent Annual General Meeting of the West of Ireland Offshore Racing Association a presentation took place of a grant to the value of one thousand euro to the Royal Western Yacht Club of Ireland for the development of…
Cruising Association Delighted Members Paul and Rachel Chandler are Safe
The Cruising Association is delighted that members Paul and Rachel Chandler are safe after their ordeal and hopes that they will soon be reunited with friends and family. President Stuart Bradley says "It has been a truly awful ordeal for…
Treasure Island Barque Arrives in Dun Laoghaire
The 145–foot Earl of Pembroke, a three-masted sailing barque that will be centre-stage in the shooting of a TV movie in Dun Laoghaire arrived in the east coast port this morning. Shooting is expected to start later this month November for…
No Irish Cruisers Among Record Atlantic Rally Fleet
With one week to go before the ARC 2010 fleet leave Las Palmas for Rodney Bay in Saint Lucia, there are no Irish yachts entered in a fleet of 205 yachts drawn from 28 nations. Crews from the yachts already berthed in…
Greagsbey in Front at Howth Laser Frostbtes
LASER FROSTBITE WINTER (O'ALL) 14/11/2010 LASER STANDARD: 1, Conor Greagsbey NYC (13.00); 2, Robin Hegarty HYC (21.00); 3, Colm Cunningham HYC (21.00); LASER STANDARD APPRENTICE: 1, Brendan Costello MYC (7.00); 2, Conor Murphy HYC (7.00); 3, Brian Tyrrell HYC (13.00);…
Papillon First Home in Howth Brass Monkey Race
HOWTH YACHT CLUB. BRASS MONKEYS WINTER (RACE) 14/11/2010 Class 2 HPH: 1, Papillon B O'Halloran; 2, C'est la Vie Flannelly/Others; 3, Maximus P Kyne; Class 3 HPH: 1, Tobago Hanna/Others; 2, Runaway Higgins/Others; 3, Just Good Friends M Carroll; Class…
Who will win Sailing's All Ireland Champs?
They've changed the date, the notice of race and now the venue but the eight finalists in this year's All Ireland Sailing Championships stay the same. We're all hoping the ISA gets more luck on the wind front next Saturday…
Commodores' Cup Boats Jointly Awarded Boat of the Year Award
There was a strong seal of approval from sailing delegates at the ICRA Conference yesterday evening for the decision to award the Boat of the Year prize to all three Royal Cork boats from the winning Irish Commodore's Cup team.…
ISAF Sets Out Stall at Annual Conference
ISAF President Göran Petersson set out the challenges ahead as he delivered his opening address, the President's Report, to the ISAF Council members during their first day of meetings at the 2010 ISAF Annual Conference held in Athens, Greece this…
Poll Shows Raging Bull as Favourite for ICRA's Boat of the Year
With just 24 hours to go to the announcement of sailing's boat of the year award at tomorrow's Cork harbour ICRA conference the consistent poll topper from Afloat's online survey shows ISORA offshore champion Raging Bull as a clear favourite with…
Turkey Shoot Attracts 65 Entries on Dublin Bay
With 65 boats on the line last Sunday for the opening race of the Viking Marine Turkey Shoot there's little doubt about the appeal of year round sailing on Dublin Bay. In spite of this week's high winds last Sunday's…
All Ireland Champs Move to Kinsale
The re-run of the All Ireland Sailing Championships will take place in Kinsale and not Crosshaven on November 20th according to a press release from the Irish Sailing Association published today. A minimum of three races must be completed for the…

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]