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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
Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race 2011 is Launched
The possibility of an Open 40 entry plus a new white sail division are just some of the developments for the tenth Dingle Skellig Hotel Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race. Over 50 (SCROLL DOWN FOR PHOTOS BY MICHAEL CHESTER) gathered…
J24 Europeans 2011 Preview
September 09th - 15th 2011. Hot on the heels of running the Etchells Worlds this year, Howth Yacht Club is already well advanced in its planning for the 2011 European Championship of the J/24 Class. With over 5,000 boats in…
Topper World Championships 2011 Preview
August 14th - 19th 2011. The National Yacht Club beat off stiff competition from around Europe to secure the Topper World Championships. It follows the successful 2010 Topper Worlds held at Lake Garda last August. The news was confirmed by…
La Solitaire du Figaro 2011 Preview
In a major coup for Dun Laoghaire and for the National Yacht Club, a top French fixture involving 50 single-handed yachts will visit the east coast port next Summer. Dun Laoghaire will be the only stop-over outside France for next…
Calves Week 2011 Preview
July 29th - August 07th. Calves Week organisers have left leaving nothing to chance next year. They published the entry form and notice of race for the 2011 West Cork regatta in November 2010! The event runs from July 30th…
Tall Ships Ireland
Billed as the biggest sailing event in Ireland in 2011, the return of the Waterford Tall Ships Festival is set to see over 70 majestic tall ships provide a significant morale boost to the nation. The four-day sailing spectacle will…
WIORA 2011 Preview

WIORA 2011 Preview

3rd February 2011 WIORA
July 13th - 16th 2011. Four days and seven races, in IRC and ECHO 1, 2, 3 and White Sails classes, is the menu for excitement in Clifden this year. Last hosted by this club in 2007, when the West…
Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta 2011
The Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta takes place from July 7th - 10th 2011. Below is an event preview, click here for the latest news on the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta. There's a new helmsman at the wheel of Volvo Dun…
Sovereigns Cup 2011 Preview
June 22nd-25th 2011. The outer harbour at Kinsale will present excellent sailing conditions and a beautiful backdrop for visitors to the Sovereign's Cup in late June. The hugely popular bi-annual cruiser regatta hosted by the Kinsale Yacht Club prides itself…
ICRA Nationals 2011 Preview
The Cruiser Racer sailing event of the season is on June 17th - 19th. There is already overseas interest from Wales and the UK for the ICRA Nationals, and this year the event is also being promoted in France. The…
ISORA 2011 Preview

ISORA 2011 Preview

3rd February 2011 ISORA
ISORA has published its race schedule for 2011 and to win the overall sailing series next year boats must complete four of the six 'qualifying' events. Points for the overall series will then be taken from the best five results…
Dun Laoghaire to Dingle 2011 Preview
The Dun Laoghaire to Dingle race takes place from June 11th - 14th. When the race participants head off from the harbour arms of Dun Laoghaire and head along the Leinster coast, they will be celebrating the tenth such race…
Fireball Worlds 2011 Preview
June 11th - 24th. Ireland's recent sailing success in attracting international events continues in 2011 with the hosting of the Fireball Worlds by Sligo Yacht Club from June 11th to 24th. Awarded to Ireland by Fireball International, this regatta will…
Mitsubishi ISA Youth Nationals Preview
April 28 - May 01. As part of the build up to the Dublin Bay 2012 sailing competition, the ISA and Dun Laoghaire waterfront clubs are combining to create a new exciting youth championship to be hosted at the 2012…
Ten Days of Racing on the South Coast
The Irish Cruiser Racing Association is getting behind Kinsale's Sovereign's Cup to promote the fact that for Cruiser sailing racer fans there will be two great regattas in a 10 day period on the South coast in June. The ICRA…
First entries in for Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta
July's Volvo Dun Laoghaire regatta has taken in 22 entries six months ahead of the first race. It's an encouraging figure that's on a par with the 2009 VDLR, the biggest regatta in Irish sailing that year.The positive early response…

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]