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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
City Prepares for Return of Clipper Race with 'LegenDerry' Maritime Festival
#clipperrace – Preparations are well underway for the return of the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race with one of the most exciting events planned for the year, a weeklong LegenDerry Maritime Festival from 21-29th June 2014. The Foyle Quay is…
Flying Fifteens Prepare for DBSC Season With New Boats & Crew Combinations
#flyingfifteen – The Kia sponsored Dun Laoghaire Flying Fifteen fleet continues to expand with a number of new boats to the fleet as well as some crews upgrading their boats. For the first time in a long number of years…
finn lynch split olympic week.jpg
#olympicsailing–17–year–old Finn Lynch is a step closer to fulfilling his dream of representing Ireland in Rio 2016 tonight after earning a second Laser Standard nation place at Spit Olympic week in Croatia. Lynch's tenth overall result puts two Irish Lasers…
Royal Cork's Guilfoyle is Top Irish At Laser Europa Cup, Marseille
#laser – The complete absence of any Irish Laser Radial presence at Weymouth for the RYA youth nationals this week is explained by the eight Irish sailors competing at the Laser Europa Cup in Marseille, France. Royal Cork's Seafra Guilfoyle…
RYA Scotland Seek Irish Boats For Commonwealth Flotilla
It was hard to miss the big announcement of '100 days to go' for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow this week but today it is the turn of RYA Scotland as they also reach the '100 days to go' milestone…
Irish 29er Pair in Gold Fleet Position in Weymouth
#ryayouthweek –  Irish 29er skiff sailors Sean Donnelly and Patrick Crosbie are through to the gold fleet of the RYA's Youth National Championships at Weymouth this week. The National Yacht Club pairing lie 17th in a fleet of 32 with…
There are just over 10 weeks to go to the start of the 17th Round Ireland Yacht Race writes Peter Shearer, Commodore of Wicklow Sailing Club. There is talk of a Volvo 70 chasing line honours, although the record of just under…
A Busy Day for the 'Alfred', the Start of a Hectic 2014 Sailing Season
#rayc - Saturday 12th April was a busy day for the Royal Alfred Yacht Club, being actively involved in simultaneous events on the Liffey and in Howth. On the Liffey the Royal Alfred was coordinating the on-the water part of…
Crash & Burn on Lough Ree as Irish Moth Fleet Experience Freshwater Foiling
#mothtour – The Irish Moth fleet planned a weekend away in Lough Ree for our third ever event! Ronan Wallace (moth newbie) and myself (Annalise) arrived down to Quigley's Marina in Killinure early on Friday afternoon which gave us time…
SSV Oliver Hazard Perry is Newest Addition to America's Tall Ship Fleet
#tallships – While lathes are turning in Washington State, dozens of riggers have begun working on the standing rigging that will faithfully support the three masts of SSV Oliver Hazard Perry. The 200-foot square-rigged Tall Ship is Rhode Island's official…
'RS400 Explosion of Action and Enthusiasm', A 'Newbie' Comments
#rssailing – David Rose, a new member of the RS class, sends these comments on the weekend's Eastern Championships at Greystones. As one of the new members of the RS400 class in Ireland, and someone who has not sailed a…
World Championship Fireball Winning Crew Coaches at Dun Laoghaire
#2013 Fireball World Championship winning crew Simon Potts fulfilled the coach's role at what has now become the herald of the domestic Irish Fireball scene – the season opening coaching weekend. Potts, who won the Worlds in Slovenia crewing for Tom Gillard,…
RS Sailors Tested at Greystones Eastern Championships
#rssailing – The first event of the season proved to be a testing one for all. After the first days squally conditions which saw the Fevas getting in only one race the Sunday dawned relatively benign. Overall results are available to…
Howth Yacht Club & Royal St. George Team Racers To Represent Ireland At Wilson Trophy
#teamracing – This year Irish team racing hopes of success at the Wilson trophy rest on the shoulders of Howth Yacht Club and the Royal St. George YcC The highlight of the team racing calendar is next month when the top team…
Model Boat Racers Ask the Question: 'To Chine or not to Chine?'
#modelboat – The model boat classes have been experimenting with chines for a while now. We have seen a new trend over the recent years in boat designs. This new wave came from the racing boats, TP52, VOR70, and recently making…
Kinsale Remembers Former Scora Commodore With A Minute's Silence Before Racing
#kinsale – Sunday's racing at Kinsale Yacht Club in County Cork was overshadowed by the sad passing of former Scora Commodore Vinnie O'Shea. Vinnie had been a great supporter of Kinsale Yacht Club and was well known as the Skipper…

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]