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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
Round Ireland Winner Vroon Starts as Channel Race Favourite
Round Ireland Race Winner Piet Vroon’s Tonnerre de Breskens 3, who is leading the Season’s Points Championship by a country mile, starts as favourite for RORC's Channel Race in nine days time. It is the last RORC offshore race prior to…
Irish Feel the Heat at 470 Worlds
Anyone who's raced in the 470 fleet knows that it's one of the toughest dinghy fleets in the world, and the two Irish boats at the 470 worlds are facing that steep learning curve at the moment.  Both teams are…
Another Podium for O'Dowd
Dun Laoghaire sailor Matthew O'Dowd made it two in a row yesterday, posting a second consecutive third place finish at the ISAF Youth Worlds. The third day of racing yielded only one race for O'Dowd's Laser Radial fleet and the…
Day Three: More Cork Week Video Action Here!
Second video installment from Digby Fox in Crosshaven. Big Seas and big breeze on Day three of Cork Week. We'll be knocking another out tonight, and a final tomorrow night. We'll be knocking another out tonight, and a final tomorrow…
Multala Crowned Laser Radial World Champion, Murphy Best of Irish
It is never an especially satisfying way to win world titles, but with no racing on the final two days of the Laser Radial World Championships at Largs Finland's Sari Multala and Poland's Marcin Rudawski prevailed and were piped up…
Kelly's Storm Wins IRC One in Howth
HOWTH YACHT CLUB. WEDNESDAY SERIES 2 (RACE) 14/07/2010 Class 1 IRC: 1, Storm P Kelly; 2, Makutu Doyle/Others; 3, Tiger Hughes/Harris; Class 1 HPH: 1, Joslim J Connolly; 2, Makutu Doyle/Others; 3, Storm P Kelly;
Day Three: Big Waves Ensure Cork Week Stages a Classic Day Afloat
Big breeze and big seas created some mind-boggling action at Cork Week on Day Three writes Louay Habib. Torrential rain in the early morning, gave way to some sublime sunshine giving the competitors some classic Irish sailing. 15-18 Knots of…
20 Confirmed for Fireball Leinsters in Howth
The Fireball Leinster Championship at Howth YC this weekend has 20 confirmed entries to date, including the current National Champions and pre-event favourites Noel Butler and Shane McCarthy from Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club. The southside pairing has already won the…
Stuck in the Mud - Cork Week Video Here!
Check out an English visitor sailing in IRC 4 who hit the putty off Cobh just metres from the finish line yesterday! It's all below in a three minute clip, the first Cork Week video report from Digby Fox. 
No Racing Puts the Pressure on Final Day at Largs
More than five hours of frustrating drifting on the Clyde off  Largs today proved to be in vain for the sailors awaiting racing at the Laser Radial World Championships. The mirror like waters were only occasionally ruffled by light airs…
Tiller Girl Takes Tuesday Mermaid Race
DUBLIN PORT Dublin Bay Sailing Club Results for 13 JULY 2010 CRUISERS 2 - 1. Borraine (Ean Pugh), 2. Cor Baby (Keith Kiernan et al), 3. Katanca (C. Ennis/B O'Connor) CRUISERS 3 - 1. Chouskikou (R.Sheehan/R.Hickey), 2. Pamafe (Michael Costello),…
Day Two: Cork Week Offers Light Winds, Mist and Dolphins
A fickle breeze fluctuating between six and eight knots swept in an early morning mist at Crosshaven this morning for the second day of Cork week regatta. Curious dolphins were a regular sight on the race course popping up next to…
Cork Week Day 2 Pics here!
Cork Week pics (Day 2). Different weather to-day! Grey, dull and misty, a great contrast to yesterday's sunshine but Bob Bateman's action from day two is captured HERE!
South Africa Enters Commodores Cup Fray
There are only a few weeks to the close of entries at this year’s Rolex Commodores’ Cup. Whilst most teams have finalized their boats and crews, others are still engaged in discussions to determine their line-ups. For all teams, both…
The World's Smallest Circumnavigation
Most of the news at the moment, save the Round-the-World antics of the Clipper fleet, is small boat stuff, close to shore. But there's one story drawing to a close that mixes both. Franco-Italian sailor Alessandro DiBenedetto is nearing completino…
Cork Finish Rounds Out Clipper 2009-10
When Cork, just four nautical miles from the finish line in Ijmuiden, Netherlands, crosses the line, it will allow race organisers officially crown Spirit of Australia as the winning crew, with one short leg to Hull remaining. The crew, who…

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]