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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
BMW to sponsor J/24 Europeans at Howth
Howth Yacht Club has announced that BMW Ireland is to be the title sponsor of the J/24 European Championship at Howth next September when up to forty boats from six countries are expected to compete. One of the major regattas…
Irish Olympic Keelboat Trials Starts this Month
Act one, scene one of Irish sailing's bid for Olympic glory in London next years kicks off this month when rival helmsmen Max Treacy and Peter O'Leary square up for the right to represent Ireland next July at the Olympic…
ISORA Fleet Prepares for Arklow Race
After the pasting the ISORA fleet got last weekend in the first ISORA offshore race of the season the good news is that conditions on the Irish Sea look better with moderate south east winds promised for Saturday. The next…
Equinox Wins Howth IRC Race
HOWTH YACHT CLUB. WEDNESDAY SERIES 1 (RACE) 04/05/2011 Class 1 IRC: 1, Equinox R McDonald; 2, Trinculo M Fleming; Class 1 HPH: 1, Trinculo M Fleming; 2, Equinox R McDonald; Class 2 IRC: 1, Dux A Gore-Grimes; 2, Toughnut D…
Wow, Rockabill and Azure Among Early Entries for Cruiser Racer Nationals
Buoyant ICRA Commodore Barry Rose has revealed George Sisk's new boat Wow, Paul O'Higgin's Rockabill IV, Rob Davies' Roxy 6 and Anthony O Leary's Antix are all entered for June's ICRA National Championships in Crosshaven in seven weeks time. Vinny…
Leila First Home in Howth Yacht Club's Summer Sailing Series
HOWTH YACHT CLUB. TUE + SAT SERIES 1 (RACE) 03/05/2011 17 Footer SCRATCH: 1, Leila R Cooper; 2, Deilginis Deilginis Group; 3, Aura I Malcolm TUESDAY SERIES 1 (RACE) 03/05/2011 Puppeteer SCRATCH: 1, Harlequin Clarke/Egan; 2, Ibis S Sheridan; 3,…
Oram's Boat with No Name Takes Second Win on Dublin Bay
Moderate easterly winds produced a great night's sailing on Dublin Bay tonight for the second Tuesday night race of the DBSC Summer season. In the Fireball dinghy class S. Oram's unnamed boat entry won again from Louis Smyth's 'Licence to…
Browne is New Zealand Bound After Consistent Trials Win
The IODAI Optimist Trials concluded in Dun Laoghaire this weekend at the Mitsubishi Youth Regatta with a fine win for Sophie Browne. The Tralee Bay Sailor raced a consistent series with blinding boatspeed to pip long term leader Sean Donnelly…
Dun Laoghaire Regatta Extends Entry Discount for Extra Two Weeks
In spite of a healthy entry of over 300 boats for July's Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta, organisers have extended the early bird entry incentive discount (due to close yesterday) for another two weeks. Current Entries to the country's biggest sailing…
RORC Fleet Blast to Le Havre
The first sailing race to France for the 2011 RORC Season's Points Championship proved to be a real cracker with several classes enjoying some extremely competitive racing writes Louay Habib. With over 100 entries for the race, the Royal Yacht…
Youth Team Named for Croatia (Podcast with Team Manager Here)
After the prizes were handed out for the Youth National Championships at the National Yacht Club tonight Olympic Team Manager James O'Callaghan named the Irish team for the 2011 ISAF Youth World Championships in Croatia in July. In the podcast…
Brow is Topper National Champion
The Topper National Champion is T Brow (Ballyholme YC). Second is 2nd Laura Gilmore (Strangford Lough YC) and third is Andrew Penney (East Antrim BC) Topper CLASS Sailed: 8, Discards: 1, To count: 7, Entries: 31, table.tableizer-table {border: 1px solid…
Johnston and Byrne are RS Feva Champions
The Feva National Champions are D Johnston & L Flynn Byrne (Howth YC). Second is C Totterdell & S Craig (National YC/Royal St. George YC) and third is C Mollard & J Harris (Howth YC) RS Feva XL CLASS Sailed:…
Seafra Guilfoyle is Laser 4.7 National Champion
The National Champion is Seafra Guilfoyle (Royal Cork YC). Second is Darragh O’Sullivan (Kinsale YC). Third is Finn Lynch (NYC/Blessington SC) The first Girl is Sian Kneafsey (National YC. Laser 4.7 CLASS Sailed: 8, Discards: 1, To count: 7, Entries:…
Brother and Sister are 420 National Champions
The 2011 420 dinghy National Champions are Patrick Crosbie & Chloe Crosbie (Royal Cork YC. Second is Aodh Kennedy & Daniel Browne (Kinsale YC & Tralee Bay YC). Third is Emma Geary & Niamh Connolly (Royal Cork YC & Baltimore…
The 2011 National Champion in the Laser Radial class is Philip Doran (Courtown Sailing Club). Second overall Robbie Gilmore (Strangford Lough YC) and third Eoin Keller (Lough Derg YC). The first Girl is Sophie Murphy of Quoile Yacht Club. Laser…

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]