Menu

Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

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
Female Crews Flex Their Muscles In Record Breaking Rolex Fastnet Race
#fastnet – A key feature of this year's Rolex Fastnet Race will be the number of high profile women taking part, when the world's largest offshore race sets sail from Cowes on Sunday 11th August. Yet again the Royal Ocean…
Legal Costs Could 'Bankrupt' International Disabled Sailing Body, Warns President
#IFDS – On the eve of the International Federation for Disabled sailing (IFDS) World Sailing Championships being staged in Kinsale, County Cork next month, its President, Irish Paralympian John Twomey, has warned of the potential bankruptcy of the world body…
Record Fleet Sail to Aran Islands
#aranislands – A record fleet descended on the recently extended harbour at Kilronan in the Aran Islands last weekend (July 5-7) in an initiative co-ordinated by Pierce Purcell of Purcell Marine in Clarenbridge, with John O'Malley rounding up the North…
Full Page Irish Times Sailing Coverage Lists 390 Dun Laoghaire Regatta Entries
#vdlr2013 – To mark today's opening of the country's biggest sailing regatta, the Irish Times Newspaper has published the full entry list of 393 competing boats on page 25 of this morning's edition. Dublin becomes the heart of Irish Sea yachting today…
RORC Offshore Fleet Set Sail for St Malo
#rorc – This weekend over 170 yachts from six different nations will race across the English Channel to the famous walled port city of St Malo in Brittany, France. The 170-mile race pre-dates the Royal Ocean Racing Club by almost…
RORC Launches Photo Contest For IRC Yearbook Front Cover
#RORC - The Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) Rating Office is launching an international competition next week to select the photograph that will grace the front cover of the 2014 edition of the RORC IRC Yearbook, published by Yachting World.…
'Hang in There Dun Laoghaire Regatta, The Winds Are Coming', Says Met Guru
#vdlr2013 – A weather expert has allayed fears of a windless start to Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta tomorrow in spite of the current calm on Dublin Bay. An area of high pressure hangs over Ireland on the eve of the event…
Final Entry List for Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta 2013
#VDLR2013 – Scroll down this page for the full entry of 390 boats in 25 classes equalling the inaugural 2005 regatta.   ClassBoat NameOwnerClub IRC 0 Jezebel Guy Cowper Royal Dee YC   Eos Rod Stuart Clyde CC   Impetuous…
Irish Fireball Dinghy Preview for Dun Laoghaire Regatta & Skerries Nationals
#vdlr2013– The Irish Fireball fleet faces into seven days of intense racing with the advent of the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta and their Nationals on successive weekends. In a year when numbers at regattas have been under pressure, there is…
Plymouth Gets Set to Welcome Fastnet Race Competitors
#fastnet – Plymouth is gearing up to welcome thousands of sailors from all corners of the globe in the Royal Ocean Racing Club's celebrated Rolex Fastnet Race. Now in its 45th edition the biennial race, which started in 1925, features on every…
Multiple Champions Sign Up for Howth's BMW J/24 Worlds
#hyc – The current World Champion Mauricio Santa Cruz of Brazil, 2011 European Champion Ian Southworth of Britain and the top two finishers in this year's North American Championship are among the leading names already entered for the BMW J/24…
Olympic Sailing Team Sign Rio 2016 Sponsor
#rio – In a continuation of its relationship with Irish high performance sailing, the Irish Olympic sailing team announced a new deal for the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Regatta in 2016 with Irish exploration firm Providence Resources in Dublin this morning.…
RS Titles Decided in Record Breaking Turnout on Belfast Lough
#RS – A record breaking turnout of 72 RS dinghies descended on Belfast Lough for the three day Irish Nationals and Euro-Cup making it one of the biggest dinghy sailing events to be held in the country this year. The…
Dragon Championships Forced to Tack Due to 'Lack of Numbers'
#dragon – The Irish Dragon class has been unable to commit to 'more than a handful of boats' travelling to Bangor in County Down for the 2013 Irish National Championships in August. As a result, the class has been forced in…
DBSC Cruiser Challenge to Include Beneteau 31.7 National Championships
#dbsc – In a week that is a two year high point for Dublin Bay sailing and the staging of Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta on Thursday, Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) has made the timely announcement of its annual DBSC…
Classic Yachts Looking for Wind off Cowes
There may have been no sailing on the opening day of a British Classic yacht week in Cowes, but that didn't stop the competitors having a fabulous time. The schedule called for the Panerai Classic Around The Island Race, with…

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]