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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
Fog Robs Squibs of Day Two
Thick fog on Dublin Bay meant a day ashore yesterday for the 140 competitors in the SF Marina Squib Nationals at the Royal St George Yacht Club. Nigel Grogan and Daniel Cripps from Royal Corinthian maintain their lead from the…
Sun Shines on J24 Western Championships
"Lough Ree always had the water and the boats - They just needed the weather!" was the comment from Commodore of Lough Ree Yacht Club; Frank Murray. Summer certainly obliged with blue skies, blazing sunshine, 24 degrees and moderate breeze…
Water Rat Predicts the Round Ireland Winner
In my opinion it's Inis Mor this year for overall honours in the Conway Media Round Ireland Race.  If there isn’t a parking lot after Rathlin, they should hold their time on the guys ahead.  It seems to me that…
Leaders Power Up the West Coast
Just over half the fleet have rounded the Fastnet Rock in the Conway Media Round Ireland Yacht Race, with the leaders stretching their legs in plenty of breeze up the west coast. With between 14 and 20 knots of wind…
Butler and McCarthy Continue to Lead Fireballs After Strangford Weekend
Traditional northern hospitality was strongly in evidence when the Irish Fireball fleet made their debut appearance at Strangford Lough’s East Down Yacht Club. Situated a short distance round the coastline from Killyleagh, EDYC played host to 16 Fireballs, a similar…
Irish Sailors Compete at Kiel
Max Treacy and Anthony Shanks are the top Irish performers at Kiel Week in Germany, sitting in eighth place after two races. The fleet is largely diminished from the 132-boat monster entry at the Europeans, with just 22 Stars showing…
Galileo Reports In From Off Cork Coast
Galileo have reported in via Afloat's free crew podcasting solution (details HERE) to say that they are making good headway off Youghal in the Round Ireland Yacht Race. Things are getting tricky up front with the leaders trying to judge the…
Midday Results Give French Skipper the Lead
Bernard & Laurent Guoy lead the standings after a full day's racing in the Round Ireland Yacht Race on corrected time in their boat Inis Mor, which is currently second on the water behind Tonnerre de Breskens. The Race Office…
Big Boats Ready for Cork Week
Although talk that sailing numbers are down is a persistent theme in 2010, Cork Week has always attracted the big boats and Crosshaven organisers say this year is no exception. The Super Zero Class is expected to be a competition…
Round Ireland Fleet Spreads Along South Coast
The leading group of the Round Ireland Yacht Race split overnight, with a group of three boats following Tonnerre de Breskens south. Open 60 Spirit of Rosslare Europort, the Class 40 Daft.com and the British military Archambault 40 Fujitsu all…
Sun Shines on Dun Laoghaire Squibs
More than 70 boats and 400 sailors, their families and friends from Ireland and the UK converged on Dun Laoghaire this weekend for the start of the biggest event in the sailing calendar in Dublin Bay this year. All the…
Round Ireland Yacht Race Leaders Round Tuskar Rock
With nearly ten hours gone, race favourites Tonnerre de Breskens lead the Conway Media Round Ireland Yacht Race as the leading pack leave the Tuskar Rock behind. Breskens was first around, with Frenchman Bernard Gouy in Inis Mor 3.8 miles…
Ten Thousand Descend on Wicklow Town for Round Ireland Start
Organisers say over ten thousand people flocked to Wicklow Town this weekend to celebrate the Conway Media Round Ireland Yacht Race, the longest race in the Royal Ocean Racing Club calendar. With the 2010  race marking the landmark 30th anniversary…
Galileo First To Report In From Round Ireland Yacht Race
Sean Lemass and crew aboard Galileo were the first to report in via audioboo podcast this afternoon, reporting slow going off Brittas Bay, making just two knots COG in the Round Ireland Yacht Race. Their podcast is below. {mp3}2pm sunday…
Round Ireland Start Photos Here!
Photographer Bob Bateman was in among the fleet for the start of this afternoon's Wicklow's Round Ireland Race. A perfect start in light conditions across Wicklow Bay. His photos below and also on the gallery here. More on the Round…
Round Ireland Race 2010 - They're Off!
Dutch race veteran Piet Vroon's Tonerre de Breskens III made the most of the light northerlies at start time to take the advantage in the opening minutes of this year's Round Ireland race at Wicklow today. The fleet are sailing…

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]