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
Eamonn Rohan is October's Sailor of the Month
Eamonn Rohan of Crosshaven is the Irish Independent/Afloat.ie “Sailor of the Month ” for October. His prototype King 40 Blondie IV has taken the Class 1 championship in the Royal Cork’s Autumn League by 0.5 points, after the most hotly-contested…
Speed Sailing Underway
Action from Dungarvan, Co. Waterford, and good conditions on Wednesday (4th October) saw some racing but – as is the way of these things – the wind died down before the windsurfers got a result. Thursday was more of the…
Cork Steals Clipper Lead
Having crept closer and closer to Hull & Humber throughout the last two days, at midnight Cork stole the lead from the English boat and this morning the Irish team continues to put the miles between them and the rest…
Match Racing Association A well attended meeting of active match racers was held at Kinsale Yacht Club on the 24th of October 2009. As a result it was agreed to form an Irish Match Racing Association in order to further…
Turkey Shoot Fleet to Reach 80
A fleet of 40 boats already entered is expected to double in the next few days for Dublin Bay Sailing Club's Turkey Shoot. There has been a last call for enrtries for the Viking Marine sponsored seven race series which…
ISORA Announces 2010 Programme
A good brunch and the early publication of the Irish Sea offshore programme lies in store for East coast sailors attending next Saturday's ISORA agm at the National Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire. Commodore Peter Ryan is seeking feedback to…
World Ranking Improvement for Irish Match Racers
October's ISAF open match racing world rankings sees a big improvement for the Irish. There are now 34 ranked Irish match racers compared to a dozen this time last year. Ireland now has a top 100 match racer in John…
Multihulls Flying in Cork Harbour
Handicap racing for multihulls in Cork Harbour produced fast sailing yesterday in the final race of the October league. Double handed Hobie Tigers raced with the single-handed A class. Depending on weather conditions racing alternated between windward leeward courses inside…
Perfect Finish to October League
Sixteen knot south westerly winds brought Royal Cork's October League to a close this afternoon. The spectacular final two races saw Blondie hold her overall lead in class zero. Bob Bateman's photos are over the fold. 
Italy wins SYWoC

Italy wins SYWoC

31st October 2009 Racing
Italian students have become the 2009 Student Yachting World Cup Champions. Defending champions Cork Institute of Technology finished fifth overall and University of Limerick 10th in the 12-boat event after yesterday's final rounds. The race committee had a plan to…
Rohan Leads into Final Races
Cork's Eamon Rohan has the upper hand, 3.5 points clear of Dave Dwyer's Marinercove.ie on 15 points in tomorrow's last races of the O'Flynn Exhams October league in Cork Harbour. His superbly turned-out Blondie leads class zero, and is already…
SYWoC: Night Race is Underway
Day Five: Today in Marseille was the first day in which there was no postponement of racing. The wind had filled in nicely overnight and there was a steady 6 to 10 knots across the bay of Marseille awaiting the…
Season Wrap up: Sheehy Signs off with National title
John Sheehy, Nick Smyth, Paddy Kirwan, and Marty O’Leary emerged as the top crew at the Match Racing Championships in Kinsale at the weekend, The Royal St George Yacht Club team have been dominant on the Match Racing Tour of…
Students Delayed by Light Winds
Wednesday in Marseille and the outstanding but windless sunny weather led to the race committee deciding to hoist the AP flag (postponment of racing) at 10am this morning on the dock leaving the crews to enjoy the city centre of…
First Frostbites Approaching Howth Yacht Club
Paul McMahon, current Irish No. 1 ranked Laser sailor, will be the favourite as the first race of the Howth Yacht Club Frosbites approaches this Sunday. Chasing Paul for the prestigious Rowan Cup will be relative newcomer Ronan Cull, currently…
Cork Departs for South Africa
From one mountain to another... Cork, Ireland and the nine other yachts competing in the Clipper 09-10 Round the World Yacht Race have started the next leg of the epic 35,000-mile global challenge, leaving behind the iconic Rio backdrop of…

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]