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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
Irish Match Racing Steps Up a Gear
uly will see three significant milestones and firsts in Irish match racing. The month starts with the first Irish team to enter the World University Match Racing Championships in Crete on the 5-11th. On the 20-26th a team from Howth…
Close Finishes for the Round Britain & Ireland
It was nip and tuck for the double-handed racers in the Shetland Round Britain and Ireland Race on Monday, with the first horde of finishers returning to Plymouth after 2,000 miles and four stopovers, including one in Kinsale. For an…
104 Oppies at Ballyholme for Ulsters
Three fleets of Optimists, totalling 104 young sailors, gathered at Ballyholme YC last weekend for their Ulster Championships and faced a mix of conditions, everything from blue skies and medium breeze to rain and 30 knots.  Three races were completed…
Facebook Competition: Win a McWilliams Bag!
Fancy a free McWilliams bag? Easy! All you have to do is head to Afloat's Facebook page, hit the 'Like' button, and post the answer to the following question on our wall: Who was the overall winner of the 2010…
Irish 420 Shines in Huge Kiel Fleet
Irish 420 pairing Jane Butler and Jenny Adreasson have put in an impressive show at Kieler Woche, finishing 16th out of 192 boats. The German event is one of the largest sailing festivals in the world, and a 192-boat fleet…
Cork Crew Lead the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race fleet into Kinsale
At times during the last nine months the crew of Cork might have thought this moment would never arrive but on Sunday evening at 1947 local time (1847 GMT) they crossed the finish line at Kinsale; an emotional moment as…
Cork is Edging Closer to the Kinsale Clipper Finish Line
Cork is edging closer to the Kinsale finish line tonight. Photos of Cork passing Cape Clear in West Cork below are courtesy of afloat.ie reader Richard O'Flynn. All being well it looks as though Cork will have the honour of…
Marinerscove Retains UK Title on the Solent
Cork's Marinerscove.ie (Dave Dwyer) has been declared RORC IRC National Champion, successfully retaining the title, a feat only ever achieved once before by Justin Slawson’s Big Cheese in 2001. Louay Habib Reports. The tension was mounting at the start of the…
One Week later, It's All Over; Round Ireland 2010 Overall Results here
Exactly one week after it left Wicklow, Yahttzee, the last competitor in the Round Ireland Yacht Race 2010 arrived home this morning allowing Wicklow Sailing club to publish its full overall results table (attached below). It will be a race that…
DAY TWO - Marinerscove Continues to Lead RORC IRC National Championships
Marinerscove.ie continues to impress at the top of the leaderboard in IRC Zero of the UK IRC champs, Antix is fourth in IRC one  and Roxy Six  lies fifth. Yesterday’s champagne opener was all about boat speed in the windy Western…
DAY ONE Report – Marinerscove Out in Front at RORC IRC National Championships
One of the most competitive fleets ever assembled enjoyed some spectacular sailing conditions (as Paul Wyeth's photos over the fold show) on the first day of the 2010 RORC IRC National Championship writes Louay Habib. Charles Dunstone’s TP52, Team Origin…
The 68-strong fleet head into the final day of the SF Marina Ireland Squib Nationals today, a week of sailing that has been dogged by fog and light airs. Just five races have been completed so far, and the leaders…
Slow Finish for Round Ireland
There was no deluge of overnight finishers, no sing of meteorological miracles or surging mass of racers passing Howth and heading on to Wicklow as the final stages of the Round Ireland slowed to a crawl in the short hours…
Susele Wins DBSC Dragon Race
Michael Halpenny's Dragon Susele of the Royal Irish YC was the first home in tonight's Dublin Bay Sailing Club race. The Thursday night racing was a light air affair. Second in the Dragon class was David William's Phantom, third was…
Round Ireland Podcast: Tonnerre Home and Dry
Markham Nolan spoke with South African Matt Trautman, boat captain of clubhouse leader Tonnerre de Breskens 3. Matt tells Afloat.ie about the crucial factors in Tonnerre's total domination of the Conway Media Round Ireland Yacht Race, which they led from…
Tonnerre Watching a Ticking Clock
Reports from Wicklow suggest that the crew of Tonnerre de Breskens 3, the line honours winner, have decamped to their hotel for some well-deserved rest. The ease with which they sleep will be telling. Only two boats in the Conway…

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]