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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
The World Match Racing Tour Final is moving to Sydney
Organisers of the World Match Racing Tour have announced the 2022 WMRT Final has been re-scheduled to 13-18 December in Sydney, Australia. The event will be co-hosted with the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia (CYCA) and the winner will be…
CSS regatta 2022 Commodore's cup winners James Harvey (left) with commodore Eoin Ó Conghaíle and Charlie Donald (right)
Oppie sailors took to Galway Bay at the weekend for the resumed Cumann Seoltóireachta an Spidéil (CSS) annual regatta. Challenging conditions off An Spidéal the previous weekend had restricted racing to the mixed fleet of 420, Laser, Pico and Topaz…
Winner Bobby Driscoll (right) and Ross Kearney with the 2022 GP14 Youth Trophy at Newtownards
The GP14 youth championships looked set to be a great event, running alongside the Hot Toddy, which still attracted an excellent turnout for the time of year writes Ross Kearney The weather forecast potentially put a few off, with Saturday looking…
Sian Reynolds
The Royal Yachting Association Cymru Wales has announced the appointment of Sian Reynolds as chair of its board. Sian’s appointment makes history as she is the first female chair and also the youngest chair of RYA Cymru Wales’ board. She…
Hull speed…..the Howth 17 Isobel (Conor & Brian Turvey) digs in and goes for it as she runs hard at Howth on Saturday
With six solid race results already on the leaderboard, the weekend’s seventh and final race of the Beshoff Motors Autumn League at Howth Yacht Club came through as a bonus with an often sunny though brisk and freshening southerly. But…
Hägar V, a Scuderia 65 skippered by Gregor Stimpfl, competing in IRC Class 2 of the Rolex Middle Sea Race
Conor Doyle’s Irish Xp 50 Freya, the only Irish boat in Malta's Middle Sea Race, is lying fourth on Tuesday morning in IRC Four division. The leading boats came to a grinding halt at Stromboli in the early hours of…
2022 Multihull Rolex Middle Sea Race Line Honours went to Riccardo Pavoncelli's MOD70 Mana in an elapsed time of 61 hours 32 minutes 38 seconds
Riccardo Pavoncelli's MOD70 Mana (ITA) crossed the finish line of the 2022 Rolex Middle Sea Race at 00:32:38 CEST on Tuesday, 25 October, to take Multihull Line Honours in an elapsed time of 61 hours 32 minutes 38 seconds. The…
The Irish Coast Guard Service Crosshaven RIB on its new drive-up pontoon berth at Royal Cork Yacht Club Marina
Crosshaven Coastguard has installed a new drive-up pontoon for its RIB rescue boat in Cork Harbour.  The floating pontoon, that has been installed at the Royal Cork Yacht Club marina gives the local Coastguard unit a much safer and quicker response…
A competitor completes a tack in the Optimist Dinghy RCYC Cobbler League 2022
The host club's Lucy Moynan was the winner of the Royal Cork Optimist Cobbler League Series 2022 Second was RCYC's Andrew O'Neill, with clubmate Dougie Venner third. The League took place across the first four Sundays of October and ran until…
Irish 29er dinghy star Alana Twomey is presented with the Royal Cork Yacht Club's perpetual Pyewacket Trophy for her outstanding achievements by (left) Maurice Collins and Admiral Kieran O'Connell
The national and international achievements afloat of Irish 29er dinghy star Alana Twomey were recognised ashore at the weekend at Royal Cork Yacht Club when the Irish female champion was presented with its perpetual Pyewacket Trophy. As regular Afloat readers will recall, Twomey…
Nine athletes have been nominated for the Rolex World Sailor of the Year 2022 – including world champions, Olympic medallists and world record holders
The World Sailing Awards 2022, celebrating excellence and achievement in sailing, will take place on Tuesday, 25 October 2022, starting from 16.30 UTC. The 90-minute ceremony, hosted by Alec Wilkinson and Shirley Robertson OBE, will be broadcast live on the…
The Half Tonner Swuzzelbubble (Dave and James Dwyer) continues to lead overall in IRC Spinnaker Two division of the Royal Cork Yacht Club AIB Autumn League in Cork Harbour. Scroll down for a gallery of images from race four
Wind against the tide for the first part of Sunday's Royal Cork Yacht Club AIB Autumn League meant that when combined with the lumpy sea conditions left over from Saturday's gale, there was difficult light to medium conditions for the RCYC…
The Bantry Longboat Fionnbarra sailing in Cork Harbour
The Bantry Longboat Fionnbarra, community-built by Meitheal Mara, and with rig perfectly set up, made an impressive sight in the Autumn sunshine of Cork Harbour at the weekend. The 2007 built boat had been the focus of a refurbishment project…
Strong wind conditions for the GP14 Hot Toddy event at Newtownards Sailing Club
GP14 champion Ger Owens reports on October's Hot Toddy event at Newtownards Sailing Club Newtownards was the venue for the GP14 annual Hot Toddy event. Last year's event at East Antrim was barely sailable yet despite the weekend's forecast, 32…
Niklas Zennstrom's Class One yacht Rán, a CF 520, competing in the Rolex Middle Sea Race
Kinsale skipper Conor Doyle is lying third in class four after the first 24 hours of the Rolex Middle Sea Race.  The Irish XP-50 Freya from Kinsale Yacht Club was 30 minutes behind the Podesta family’s Maltese First 45 Elusive 2…
The Worlds Number One Finn sailor Laurent Hay, from France competing at the World Masters in Helsinki
After months of development, the Finn Class is excited to announce the launch of its new World Ranking list. The new ranking platform includes more than one thousand sailors from 37 nations, and provides an excellent illustration of the spread,…

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]