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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
Busy weekend at Howth Yacht Club
It will be a busy weekend of sailing at Howth Yacht Club with over 150 boats participating in the annual Lambay Race on Saturday afternoon and the Etchells World Championships being officially ‘launched’ by the Minister of Sport Mary Hanafin…
Team Oystercatcher Raising Funds for National Children's Hospital
Team Oystercatcher, a double-handed entry in the Round Ireland race, are holding a charity fundraiser on Saturday the 12th June. Bryan Byrne and Brian Flahive are competing on behalf of the National Children's Hospital and hope to raise at least…
Round Britain and Ireland Fleet Leave Kinsale
The racing fleet in the Shetland Round Britain and Ireland race have left Kinsale after their mandatory stopover, stringing around Ireland's South-west corner this morning en route to Castlebay on Barra in the Outer Hebrides. The leading group are a…
Treacy & Shanks Close the Gap at Star Europeans
With a fourth place in today's race, Max Treacy and Anthony Shanks are perfectly placed to take advantage of the discard when it comes into place and move up the leaderboard. The Irish crews lie in 28th and 44th overall…
SB3 World Championships Tops 100 Entries
A Worlds entry list that tops the ton shows that the SB3 could well be a sportsboat class with real sticking power. The 2010 World Championship for the Laser SB3 will be hosted by Circolo Vela Torbole, Lake Garda, Italy…
New Offshore Race Around Rockall
A new offshore race will set a fleet of boats on a sprint to Rockall, a lonely rock around 270 miles north-west of Donegal. The 750-mile race will be timed to coincide with the arrival of boats in the Volvo…
'Just Enough' Wins ISORA Race Four from Pwllheli to Wicklow
Report on Race 4 – Pwllheli – Causeway - Bardsey – India Nt - Wicklow – 5th June 2010. From an entry list of 28 boats, 14 boats came to the line in Pwllheli for the 4th ISORA race –…
Inauspicious Start for Irish Stars
Ireland's two Star crews have struggled to make an impact in the initial stages of the Star Europeans, which started on Monday in Villareggio, Italy. A whopping 132 boats are taking part, with the entire fleet starting on one line…
Race Win Propels Murphy Into Top 20
A bullet in race six has pushed Dun Laoghaire sailor Annalise Murphy up the rankings at the European Laser Radial Championships in Estonia. Two top rive results have seen Annalise boosted to 17th overall in the 81-boat fleet. The regatta…
Cork Clipper Boat Leaves New York
With strong winds forecasted for the next couple of days, a confident Cork crew departed New York for the start of Race 11 of the Clipper 09-10 Round the World Yacht Race – an 800-mile sprint to Cape Breton Island, Nova…
74 J-boats Contest the 2010 J Cup
Having already had two days of awesome ‘shorts and shades’ racing at the J-Cup 2010, the 74 boat fleet were postponed ashore for a short time on Saturday until ten to twelve knots of breeze filled in from the south…
Kinsale Welcomes Round Britain & Ireland Fleet
The Shetland Round Britain & Ireland fleet have begun arriving in Kinsale for the fiirst of their mandatory 48-hour stopovers in the 1,000-mile circumnavigation of the British Isles. With surfing conditions between Plymouth and the south coast of Ireland, the…
Shinners go for Third Newport/Bermuda Win
The Cal 40 crew of Sinn Féin are looking for their third consecutive Newport-Bermuda scalp this year, with a hat-trick a very real prospect.   In 46 races since 1906, just three boats have won the major prize, the St. David’s…
Glandore Harbour Yacht Club Celebrates its 25th Anniversary
Royal Cork Boats were well represented today (Sun) at Glandore Harbour Yacht Club At Home writes Claire Bateman. Mediterranean conditions prevailed with sun, wind and sparkling blue water. When conditions such as existed today prevail this is a little piece…
Sailor of the Month: Anthony O'Leary
Anthony O’Leary of Crosshaven is the Afloat.ie/Irish Independent “Sailor of the Month” for May after a steady stream of success at the very sharp end of IRC racing in Ireland and Scotland. With his Ker 39 Antix making her debut…
Match Racing Ireland: Interview with Marty O'Leary
The Weir & Sons Leinster Match Racing Open, to be hosted by the Royal Irish Yacht Club on June 12th and 13th, looks like it will see a real influx of talent from the college team racing scene. Rick Morris…

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]