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
First Around the Fastnet Rock
At 00:26 GMT this morning Mike Slade’s 100ft supermaxi ICAP Leopard was the first boat in the 2009 Rolex Fastnet Race to round the Fastnet Rock off the coast of southwestern Ireland. In a 10-15 knot westerly breeze, Karl Kwok’s…
Royal St. George to host  Leinster Match Racing
Hot on the heels of last month’s Dublin Match Racing Open the Royal St George host to the Helly Hansen Leinster Match Racing Championships this weekend. Brian Reilly and Andrew Deakin will sit out this round due to their other…
'Legally Brunette'  approaches the Lizard
Update from Legally Brunette Skipper Paul Egan: "And then last night the winds died. A group of boats "enjoyed" some sailing through the heavy tides around Portland Bill, including ourselves. Having been stalled by the flooding tide we were whipped…
Heading for the Rock
Day 2 update: After a tricky first night at sea, the mid-fleet in the Rolex Fastnet Race have experienced a rainy grey day at sea as they slog upwind westward along the English south coast. As expected the big boats…
Department of Defence: Statement on Asgard
The weekend statement from the Dept of Defence: The Minister for Defence approved a recommendation from the Board of Coiste an Asgard not to proceed with the salvage operation and instead to commence planning for a replacement vessel. The €3.8…
Third Leg Under Way : Ireland Here We Come!
The third leg of the 40th Anniversary edition of La Solitaire du Figaro got under way as scheduled at 13h00 this afternoon, a complex 485 mile passage between St. Gilles Croix-de-Vie in France’s Vendée region across to Dingle on the…
Dorset coast’s overnight parking lot
Rolex Fastnet Race : Update 1 - Monday 10th August 2009 Overnight conditions in the Rolex Fastnet Race have ranged from tricky to impossible. While this morning at the 0600 update, Mike Slade’s ICAP Leopard was approaching Lizard Point, the…
Irish sailor is top world U17
Courtown sailor Philip Doran has won the U17 section of the Radial Youth World Championships in Karatsu, Japan with Oliver Loughead in second place giving Ireland a ‘one, two’ on the podium at U17 level. Philip finished 9th overall in…
Fastnet update: 'Legally Brunette' dodging calm spots
1900 Sunday Dun Laoghaire's Paul Egan, co-skipper of Legally Brunette, one of six Irish entries in the Fastnet race, reports from onboard: "We're off Swanage, looking at Portland Bill, 5kts of wind, 1.2 of tide behind us and 2 kts…
Fastnet Race: Spinnakers up, they're off
Morning dockside rumours of delays and divisions of boats having to kedge on the start line were roundly proven wrong as the Rolex Fastnet Race fleet, as well as spectators along the Cowes shoreline, enjoyed a magnificent, colourful spinnaker start.…
Dingle welcomes La Solitaire du Figaro
La Solitaire du Figaro - France’s Top Single Handed Yacht Race arrives to Dingle, Co. Kerry next Thursday 13th August. The fishing town welcomes the race for its 40th Anniversary and the fourth time back to Dingle. The 53-boat fleet…
George Szabo and Rick Peters (USA) won the 2009 Star World Championship with a third place finish in the final race of the series. Lars Grael and Ronald Seifert (BRA) won the race by a country mile and the Junior…
Blind Squirrel makes best of DBSC tricky conditions
When the wind finally arrived it was only to usher the Dublin Bay Sailing Club fleet back in to Dun Laoghaire harbour. It was another frustrating day sailing as the 200–boat fleet struggled with fickle westerly winds for the Saturday…
17 footers at Howth Yacht Club
17 FOOTER CHAMPS (O'ALL) at Howth Yacht Club 08/08/2009 17 footer  SCRATCH: 1, Hera J & M Duffy (8.00);  2, Aura I Malcolm (10.00);  3, Oona P Courtney (11.00);  4, Deilginis M Toomey (22.00);  5, Sheila D Bothwell (22.00);  17…
International sailing stars gear up for challenging classic
Since it was first run in 1925, the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s biennial Rolex Fastnet Race has earned a reputation for being one of the toughest events in the international yacht racing calendar. This has come about from the brutal…
Asgard - replacement postponed
On the eve of the international Tall Ships race festival in Belfast – in which Asgard II had been a regular participant – the Department of Defence has said that it is considering postponing plans for a replacement of Ireland's…

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]