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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
Is Irish Sailing Too Focused on the Olympics?
#olympicsailing – Last week, just as Ger Owens announced his intention to campaign a 470 for a possible third Olympic regatta the Irish Sailing Association (ISA) made a written proposal to get rid of that dinghy from the Olympic line…
New Tall Ship Sailing Body Seeks Part-Time Manager
Sail Training Ireland, the new body established by Cosite an Asgard and the Irish Sailing Association is looking to appoint a part-time manager to help with the development of a business plan for the new sailing organisation that will be…
Bursaries Announced as Tall Ship Sailing Creates a Buzz
There's a real sailing buzz around Tall Ships these days, even though Ireland does not currently have one to sail. There's less than 100 days to the Tall Ships visit to Waterford, last weekend saw a ground breaking Tall Ships…
Howth Yacht Club Lays Out 2011 Sailing Programme
A European Sailing Championship, four national championships, four regional championships and a dozen local regattas/events are the central features of a hectic year afloat being organised by Howth Yacht Club in 2011 which will bring thousands of sailors and their…
Round Ireland Yacht Race 2010 Review - Nav Lights, Camera, Action
A win is a win, there and then. But when sail boat racing is first-past-the-post, there's only one plotline to follow, whereas the likes of the Round Ireland Yacht Race never fails to produce sub-plot after sub-plot, races within races.…
Howth Yacht Club Launches 2011 Sailing Programme
Howth Yacht Club will launch its programme of open sailing events for 2011 at the club house tomorrow evening. In addition to running club sailing throughout the year, and both junior and adult sailing courses to get more involved in…
Irish Cruising Club Present Fastnet Award to Killian Bushe
Killian Bushe of Cork must be one of the best sailors to come out of Ireland. But unfortunately his opportunities to enjoy the sport at which he excels are severely limited by one inescapable fact. He is probably the best…
West Cork School Offers Temporary Tall Ship Sloop Solution
Although most sailing delegates attending last weekend's Tall Ships workshop in Dublin appear to see Ireland's future sail training vessel as a square rigger there was one proposal floated last Saturday that, say the promoters, would at least be a…
Ocean Sprint 4 gets underway in World Offshore Race
It was Polish ocean racer Zbigniew 'Gutek' Gutkowski who took an early lead over his race rivals as the fourth ocean sprint of the five Oceans race got underway from Punta del Este today. The 36-year-old former Polish national dinghy…
Lord Mayor Opens Tall Ship Workshop to Seek Irish Sail Training Solution
Dubin's Lord Mayor opened a Tall Ship and Youth Sail Training Workshop with an agenda to seek a solution to the current Irish Sail Training impasse caused by the loss of sailing's Asgard II and Lord Rank. Over 70 delegtes…
Irish Olympic Crews in Top Twenty of World Rankings
Two of Ireland's 2012 Olympic squad crews are ranked in the top twenty in World sailing rankings announced this week. Peter O'Leary who has been sailing with three different crews, David Burrows, Frithjof Kleen and Timothy Goodbody to date is…
Free Berthing for First 30 Entries in X Yachts Cup
There is free berthing available to the first 30 confirmed entries in this year's X-Yachts Solent Cup. Organisers are hopeful a number of Irish boats will travel. An entry form can be found HERE. Competitors will benefit from the following:…
The Return of the 'Wexford' Tall-Ship
The New Ross based replica famine sailing barque Dunbrody opened yesterday to visitors for the first time this year after completion of a refit, writes Jehan Ashmore. Since November the 458-tonnes barque (see photo) has been under maintenance in the…
100 Days to Waterford's Tall-Ships Festival
There are now only 100-days to the countdown of the Waterford Tall Ships Festival which is sailing into Irish waters at the end of June, writes Jehan Ashmore. The four-day festival starting on 30 June returns to the south-eastern city…
Moth Dinghy Debuts on Dublin Bay
Since our report on Ireland's debut at the Moth worlds in January it was inevitable that one of these high speed sailing dinghies would appear on Irish waters soon enough. Yesterday, John Chambers took his first tack of 2011 on…
Crucial Stage for Volvo Ocean Race Sponsorship Talks
Negotiations to land €11 million in sponsorship for the finals of the Volvo Ocean Race in Galway next summer are at a 'delicate stage', the Galway City Tribune reports. Six teams have so far been confirmed for the world's biggest…

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]