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
Maiden arriving in Cape Town in early January 2023 as part of her three-year world tour
Tracy Edwards MBE and DP World, title sponsor of The Maiden Factor World Tour, have announced that the iconic yacht Maiden and her all-female crew will enter the 2023 Ocean Global Race. The news confirms the commitment Edwards made in…
Pictured (from left) with Ulster Bank business development manager Derick Wilson are Bluefield Houseboats operations director Colin Nelson, chairman Tony Reid and technical director Justin Reid
A specialist houseboat manufacturer in Northern Ireland has trebled its manufacturing capacity and created three new jobs following a major investment in a new production facility with support from Ulster Bank. Launched in 2016, Bluefield Houseboats specialises in the design…
DBSC race organiser Fintan Cairns sounds the finishing horn for Hunter 701 Chilawee at the end of ace three of the AIB Spring Chicken Series
The Bavaria 33 Great Escape was the winner of the third race of the AIB-sponsored DBSC Spring Chicken Series on Dublin Bay on Sunday (19th February). The race winner is now in 19th place overall in the 37-boat fleet. Second and third places, over a new windward…
Eilidh McIntyre - The Tokyo 2020 champion has announced she is retiring from Olympic campaigning
Tokyo 2020 champion Eilidh McIntyre has announced she is retiring from Olympic campaigning. Last summer McIntyre fulfilled her lifelong dream of winning a gold medal at the delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympics, cementing her place in sport’s history books. The 28-year-old…
SailGP Emirates Great Britain grinder Matt Gotrel falls through the fairing of the British F50 on the first day of racing in Sydney
"It Was A Pretty Insane Situation". Driver of Emirates Great Britain SailGP Team Ben Ainslie has relived the moment grinder Matt Gotrel fell through the fairing of the British F50 on the first day of racing in Sydney. The team…
An impressive sight at the start of the 14th RORC Caribbean 600 as the IRC Zero and Class40 fleet set off
Irish sailors are among the crews in the top 20 boats in IRC overall after the first 15 hours of racing in the RORC Caribbean 600 Race.  Seventy boats racing under IRC, Class40 and MOCRA Rules, with crew from 30 different…
Made it....Fiachra Farrelly crosses safely ahead of the much faster Mike Evans in his twin trapeze RS800 in the HYC Frostbites, while in the background the Nose of Howth presumably continues sniffing the sea air
For the seventh weekend in a row in the Spring Series of the HYC Dinghy Frostbites, two races went ahead on schedule in the waters north of Howth Harbour. A 11-15 knot south-westerly breeze, with a maximum gust of 23…
A file photo of ILCA dinghies racing at the Viking Marine DMYC Frostbites at Dun Laoghaire Harbour
To use footballing parlance, yesterday’s Viking Marine-sponsored DMYC Frostbite session was “a game of two halves.” In the first half, we had a blustery race with winds building in the lead-up to the first warning signal, up to 17/18 knots,…
A file photo of Squib racing at Kinsale
Three different winners in three races on the fourth day of the Frostbite series at Kinsale Yacht Club on Sunday showed close competition at the top of the Squib fleet, where Ian Travers and Keith O’Riordan continue to lead in…
The RS21 is the the boat of choice for the inaugural Irish Sailing League at Dun Laoghaire
Firstly an apology; after the initial hype and launch, there has been silence regarding the Irish Sailing League. Unfortunately for me, a diagnosis of severe neck pain led to the necessity for two replacement disks in the neck; this led…
An international fleet of 70 yachts is gearing up to start the 600nm RORC Caribbean 600 in Antigua on Monday, 20th February
The 14th edition of the RORC Caribbean 600 starts on 20th February at 11:00 AST (UTC-4). Seventy boats from all over the world are ready in Antigua for the non-stop 600nm race around 11 Caribbean islands. With over 550 sailors from…
The incident occurred in the Ballyconneely area of Connemara
A University team racing crew was involved in a one-vehicle collision in County Galway on Saturday morning.  One man went to University Hospital Galway for treatment, according to Gardai. Afloat sources say the crew were travelling to an IUSA championship in…
Max Sweetman and Roisin Mitchell-Ward took four race wins for overall victory at the 420 dinghy Munster Championship at Kinsale Yacht Club
Waterford Harbour Sailing Club's Max Sweetman and Roisin Mitchell-Ward dominated a 12-boat 420 dinghy Munster Championship fleet at Kinsale Yacht Club.  After six races sailed and one discard, the Dunmore East duo won four races to win by 15 points. Sean Lemonier…
Crew scatter as Canada SailGP's F50 wing sail is caught in a storm and wrecked in Sydney after racing. See video below
A “severe weather system" after the Australian SailGP racing in Sydney caused significant damage to Team Canada’s wing sails. It has forced the cancellation of the two fleet races scheduled for Sunday. The accident occurred while the Canada SailGP Team’s…
RS Aeros on the water at the 2023 US Midwinters in Tampa, Florida
Dublin Bay Frostbites regulars Roy Van Maanen (Greystones SC) and Noel Butler (National YC) both finished second in their respective fleets at the RS Aero US Midwinters in Florida last weekend. Varied conditions tested sailors in all wind strengths in…
Irish Coast Guard personnel with an SAR helicopter in the sky overhead
The Dublin Bay Old Gaffers Association will host an illustrated lecture next week by Joe Ryan reflecting on the coastguard in Ireland over the last 200 years. Joe spent 12 years at sea as a radio officer responsible 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]