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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
Swords Sailing & Boating Club Located Halfway between Malahide and Swords, near the main Belfast road. Season runs from March to December. Very active dinghy programme – and a very active club for both the young and the young at…
Valentia Island Nautical Club Valentia Island Nautical Club, Joanne Cahill, Ballyhearney, Valentia Island, Co. Kerry. Tel: 085 743 2903, email: [email protected]   Have we got your club details? Click here to get involved  

Lisnaskea Boat Club

1st December 2009 Clubs
Lisnaskea Boat Club Lisnaskea Boat Clu, Derryad, Lisnaskea, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh BT92 0B, N. Ireland. Tel: 028 677 21895 Have we got your club details? Click here to get involved
Greystones Motor Yacht Club Do you own a power boat or a yacht? Do you moor or berth it elsewhere because of the poor condition of Greystones harbour? Is it your intention to keep your boat at the new Greystones…
East Coast Powerboat Racing Club The East Coast Powerboat Racing Club is one of the largest powerboating clubs in Ireland. It was founded in 1995, but some of its members have a long history of involvement in powerboating at various…
Donegal Bay Rib Club Ltd Donegal Bay Rib Club Ltd was founded in 2008. It is a non-profit making organisation and a company limited by guarantee registered at Companies Office, Dublin. The Club comprises a group of RIB (Rigid Inflatable…
Irish Sea Offshore Racing Association History The germ of ISORA started after the war when Irish Sea racing was at an extremely low ebb, although there was a tradition of such races such as the Tranmere Sailing Club's Midnight Race,…
Afloat.ie: Round Ireland 2010 Gets Fresh Support
Two of the country's biggest cruiser associations are leading the support for this year's Round Ireland race in an effort to make the 30th anniversary edition, a circumnavigation to remember. The Irish Cruiser Racer Association is to present a new…
Afloat.ie: RStGYC SB3 Fleet Update
The Royal St George Laser SB3 fleet of 18 boats has enjoyed a hectic season on Dublin Bay. There were 33 boats entered for DBSC racing and a great variety of events to augment the weekly stuff. This was the…
Afloat ie: Cork Week Addresses Costs
In Cork Week's Notice of Race, Mike McCarthy, Admiral of the Royal Cork Yacht Club gives an address which outlines the response to feedback given to the Club about the last event. Cork Week 2010 will have significant cost reductions…
Afloat.ie: Cork Resumes Race after Start Day Crash
The Irish entry in the Clipper 09-10 Round the World Yacht Race has set sail from Cape Town following the start day crash that forced her to return to port for repairs. Cork, Ireland has been back in port since…
Afloat.ie: Work Underway to Repair Cork
Following Sunday’s collision between Cork and Hull & Humber, at the start of Race 4 of the Clipper 09-10 Round the World Yacht Race, work is now well underway on repairs to both boats. Yesterday the boat building team working…
Afloat.ie: ISORA Plan Three Offshores Before Round Ireland
There will be three offshore races before this year's Round Ireland race, an initiative aimed at driving numbers up for the classic biennial fixutre but also at encouraging boats out of Dublin Bay to try offshore sailing. There is a…
Afloat.ie: Cork in Dramatic Collision
A dramatic start to Race 4 of Clipper 09-10 round the world yacht race in Cape Town saw eight of the boats cross the start line for the 4,700-mile race to Geraldton, Western Australia, while a collision between Cork, Ireland…
Afloat.ie: Kinetic Named Boat of the Year
Class two sailing champion Kinetic has won ICRA's Boat of the year award. The decision against a short-list of other campaigns was announced on Sunday at the ICRA conference in Kilkenny. The Corby 25 yacht owned by John Murphy and…
Afloat.ie: Another Corker on the way
Royal Cork Yacht Club and its members are gearing up for Cork Week 2010. It is a big sailing event not alone for competitors, but also for visitors to Crosshaven from the 10th – 16th July next. Given the effort…

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]