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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
Nigel Biggs and Dave Cullen's First 50 Checkmate from Howth Yacht Club is entered in the big boat class at July's Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta
Seven of the nine entries so far in the big boat class at July's Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta (VDLR) are visitors, but a brand new J112e from the home port will add extra spice to the Cruisers Zero fleet (boats greater than…
Onboard 11th Hour Racing Team on Saturday 25 March, Charlie Enright sticks his head out of the cockpit to communicate with the group on deck
It’s the final weekend in southern latitudes, in the waters the sailors in The Ocean Race call the Southern Ocean. In these Furious 50s, the winds and waves are on a one-way track from west to east around Antarctica, the…
Rounding Cape Horn is said to be the nautical equivalent of reaching Mount Everest's summit. It's also considered part of the fastest route to sailing around the world. Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, Chairman of the independent Cape Horn Hall of Fame Selection Committee, says: “This year, we are looking for Cape Horners past and present who have made a significant contribution to the sport of sailing, either solo or leading a crew around the world’s most infamous Cape.”
True to its tradition of hosting world-famous sailors, Les Sables d'Olonne, the global capital of single-handed ocean racing, is now home to the International Association of Cape Horners Cape Horn Hall of Fame. The International Association of Cape Horners (IACH)…
In 2024, Double-Handed Champion James Harayda will take on his first 'Everest of Ocean Racing', the solo 2024 Vendée Globe
Royal Ocean Racing Club member, and aspiring Vendee Globe Sailor, James Harayda is just 25 years old and already a two-time British Double Handed National Champion, racing with teammate Dee Caffari on Sun Fast 3300 Gentoo. In 2022, racing in…
The former Maxi 72s approach Capri's famous Faraglioni rocks during the 2022 IMA Maxi Europeans
Pre-registration for the International Maxi Association’s second Maxi European Championship ended last Wednesday, with the entry list already exceeding the 25 participating in 2022,  writes James Boyd. For a second year the IMA Maxi European Championship will be part of Tre…
Alex Thomson during the 2020/2021 Vendée Globe
Welsh Solo offshore Alex Thomson, who has ties to Cork Harbour in Ireland, has bought Banque Populaire’s IMOCA 60 following the team’s withdrawal from the next Vendée Globe in 2024 due to the controversial circumstances over dropping female skipper Clarisse Crémer.…
Kirsten Neuschäfer leads the Golden Globe Race and is first in the doldrums; it’s warm and dry, but lacking wind for her taste
Only three sailors are racing for the finish in the solo round-the-world Golden Globe Race, and it’s getting really close! Who will be the first to cross the finish line in Les Sables d’Olonne? Who will win this incredibly disputed…
Brian Fitzgerald of Simply Blue Group (left) and Kinsale Yacht Club's Anthony Scannell with some of the prizes on offer at June's Sovereign’s Cup that was launched on Friday at the West Cork club
Sixty per cent of the entries have already been received for June's Simply Blue Group Sovereign’s Cup at Kinsale Yacht Club on the south coast of Ireland. The 15th edition of the biennial regatta will run from 21st to 24th June…
The popular Viking Marine-sponsored DMYC dinghy Frostbites at Dun Laoghaire Harbour concludes this Sunday, 26th March, with a prizegiving at the West Pier club
The Viking Marine-sponsored DMYC dinghy Frostbites at Dun Laoghaire Harbour concludes this Sunday, 26th March. There is a favourable forecast for the afternoon with 15/16 knots from the North, the current projection on XCWeather. As reported after last Sunday's racing,…
Drone view of current Leg 3 leaders Team Malizia on Day 23 (Thursday 23 March)
The IMOCA teams have the end of the hardest part of the longest leg in the history of The Ocean Race in sight. On Friday afternoon UTC (24 March), the most iconic of landmarks to offshore sailors — Cape Horn…
Sailors from the National Yacht Club flew to the OptiOrange event in Valencia, Spain to compete in the 12 races series
National Yacht Club Winter sailing programmes have been full throttle in the various classes supported by the club, preparing actively for the beginning of the racing season. The Flying 15 winter training has led the way with an early launch…
RYA Northern Ireland's First Ever Hall of Fame night at the Crowne Plaza in Belfast, had numerous speakers, including RYA CEO Sara Sutcliffe MBE, RYA Chair Chris Preston, RYA Northern Ireland’s Chief Operating Officer Greg Yarnall and RYA Northern Ireland’s Chair Susan McKnight. The Hall of Fame inductees were Irish Olympian and Race Officer Bill O’Hara OBE, Fireball sailor and former RYANI chair Maeve Bell OBE, GP14 sailor Curly Morris OBE and sailing historian James Nixon
Four sailors have been inducted into RYA Northern Ireland’s Hall of Fame at a special gathering in Belfast. Sailors, club members, and sports representatives from right across NI joined together in Belfast for its first-ever Hall of Fame and the launch of…
Schull Community College Team 1 captained by Rory Harrap, with Lille Kingston, Daniel Copithorne, Fionn Keogh, Rocio Garcia Coello and Lara Goerner were Munster Schools Team Racing Championships winners
Schull Community College Team 1 were the victor at the Munster Schools Team Racing event hosted by the Fastnet Marina Outdoor Education Centre (FMOEC) at Schull in West Cork on Saturday, the 18th of March. The team Captain was Rory…
Ian Herbert-Jones approaches Cape Horn in extreme conditions with a broken windvane, after days of ‘biblical’ conditions
Way before the start of the Golden Globe Race in Les Sables d’Olonne, the last stretch to Cape Horn was always a concern for Ian Herbert-Jones (GBR). It became more of a worry for him in the South Atlantic when…
Irish Sailor Tom Dolan is setting out to break the single-handed Round Ireland speed sailing record
Irish solo sailor Tom Dolan plans to return to his native Ireland from France in May when he will seek to break the singlehanded record for sailing 698 nautical miles around Ireland. The skipper of Smurfit Kappa –Kingspan is aiming…
Biotherm skipper Paul Meilhat and Anthony Marchand on deck during a sail change in the Southern Ocean on Wednesday 22 March
For 50 years of The Ocean Race, sailors have considered the Southern Ocean leg — the racing that takes place between Cape Town and Cape Horn, deep in the southern latitudes — as the biggest milestone in the event. Rounding…

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]