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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
Above: Action from the 2009 Oyster Pearl event at D&CSC 2006 was a year of great importance for Carlingford Sailing Club, as the new Club House opened in May that year. The development indicates the great confidence of the Club…
Baltimore Sailing Club was founded in 1956 as a summer sailing club. From its inception it has been successfully developing leisure and competitive sailing in Baltimore Harbour. The Club over the years has continued to expand and teach safe sailing…
This year (2009) Arklow Sailing Club celebrates their 40th anniversary with increased vigour and energy. Originally founded by a handful of local enthusiasts in 1969, the club operates from a base on the North Quay in Arklow town, on the…
Overlooking scenic island-studded waters, Skerries is a vibrant and fast growing dinghy and cruiser club for adults and children. Racing (May-December) three times weekly in high season. Adult, children, newcomers to sailing and family members are especially welcomed. The bar…
Lough Derg Yacht Club, founded in 1835, is situated in Dromineer, close to Nenagh, in Co Tipperary. Day membership is available to visitors to the club and adult sailing classes are available for non-members. The club offers great sailing and…
History Since the turn of the century, sailors in the Sutton Creek area had made various attempts to establish a club, and around 1930 an liaison was formed with Howth Sailing club, with meetings and social events taking place in…
History The first Glandore Classic Boat Regatta was held in 1992 under the flag of Glandore Harbour Yacht Club. It was held over a long week-end and the combination of the venue – Glandore harbour’s natural amphitheatre – the warm…
In the early years of the nineteenth-century, yachting in Cork harbour was the exclusive privilege of the Royal Cork Yacht Club, which raced the yachts of the former J Class: Valkeirie, White Heather, Britannia, Kaisarine, Shamrock, etc. All raced in…
History The Club was formed in 1899 by an amalgamation of the Ulster Sailing Club with the Cultra Yacht Club, and was initially called the North of Ireland Yacht Club. It retained that title until 2 September 1902 when His…
Lough Neagh Sailing Club is situated at the southern end of the largest inland waterway in the British Isles. The racing area is superb and also offers an exciting – but safe – cruising ground with access to the open…
“Some things in life extend beyond ordinary experience – the Royal Irish Yacht Club is such a place, once enjoyed it can only be equalled by return.” The painting of the Royal Irish Yacht Club (above) is an extract from…
The club was born in 1965, but was conceived long before then in the Crofton Hotel (where the BIM offices now stand). It was there that a number of owners who were not members of any club and who kept…
The Royal Cork Yacht Club   History Some time in the early 1600s, the idea of sailing for private pleasure started to take root in the Netherlands. Later that century, during the Cromwellian years, King Charles II of England was…
Wicklow Sailing Club Founded in 1950, the club currently has over three hundred members, racing in several classes including cruisers, Wayfarers, 420s, Lasers, Toppers and Mirrors. Racing for cruisers during the summer season is every Wednesday and Sunday, while racing…
Brief History of Poolbeg area Poolbeg Yacht & Boat Club is adjacent to the Pigeon House coal burning electricity-generating station, which was officially closed in July 1976. It nestles at the foot of the towering twin stacks of the modern…
Kinsale Yacht Club, as it exists today, was established in 1950. The first Commodore of the club was John H. Thuillier. KYC was first located in two cottages opposite the slip at Scilly, across the harbour from the current location.…

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]