Menu

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
Leg 3, Day 34 (Saturday 1 April) onboard 11th Hour Racing Team, with Jack Bouttell and Justine Mettraux on the bow during a sail change
With The Ocean Race Leg 3 winner Team Malizia and second-place finisher Team Holcim-PRB safe in Itajaí, the battle on the water for third place has closed up dramatically over the past 24 hours. Paul Meilhat’s Biotherm crew has realised…
Irish sailor Tom Dolan transitions to double-handed mode as he pairs up with French ace Achille Nebout for the new 316 miles Trophee Laura Verge
Two weeks after his encouraging sixth in the 2023’s season’s first race, the Solo Maître CoQ, Irish sailor Tom Dolan transitions to double-handed mode as he pairs up with French ace Achille Nebout for the new 316 miles Trophee Laura…
The RORC Easter Challenge is not a championship, so the race team will set courses which are both windward leeward and round the cans. The competitors race their boats at every point of sail and hopefully in different wind conditions
Over 200 sailors are expected for the Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) Easter Challenge on the Solent this weekend. Three days of racing are organised in The Solent from Easter Friday to Easter Sunday. For over 20 years, the RORC has held…
ILCA 6 sailors start a race at the 2022 Trofeo S.A.R. Princesa Sofía in Mallorca. The 2023 regatta starts this morning
Mallorca‘s renowned Bay of Palma is set to see the biggest-ever racing fleet take to its waters as the Trofeo Princesa Sofia Mallorca by Iberostar lifts the curtain on the 2023 Olympic classes season. Irish Olympic campaigners are in action…
Royal St. George Yacht Club Dragon Jaguar Sailing Team (pictured right in blue) of Martin Byrne, Adam Winkelmann and John Simms, who finished third overall at the Commodore's Cup in Cannes
The Royal St. George Yacht Club Dragon Jaguar Sailing Team took third overall at the  Commodore's Cup in Cannes, France on Sunday.  The keelboat trio of Martin Byrne, Adam Winkelmann and John Simms, who finished on 15 points, were competing…
David and James Dwyer in the Royal Cork Dubois Half tonner Swuzzlebubble were winners of the first race of the Axiom Private Clients Spring Series 2023 at Kinsale Yacht Club
On a day that suggested summer is coming, Royal Cork Yacht Club boats topped the Axiom Private Clients Spring Series 2023 in both Spinnaker One and Two divisions at Kinsale Yacht Club on Sunday.  Half Tonner Swuzzlebubble (David and James Dwyer) won…
Two of the newly restored Dublin Bay 21s being put through their paces
The next stage in the Dublin Bay 21 restoration project is getting out on the water and racing the Naneen, Garavogue, Estelle and Geraldine in their original sailing condition. And that’s exactly what will be happening later this month with…
Team Malizia wins Leg 3 in the early hours of Sunday 2 April, covering its 14,714 nautical miles in 34 days, 17 hours, 10 mins, 28 seconds
This morning, Sunday 2 April at 05:20:28 UTC (02:20:28 local time) in Brazil, Team Malizia glided across the finish line off Ocean Live Park in Itajaí to win Leg 3 of The Ocean Race 2022-23, collecting five points in the…
The new RS21 will compete on the Irish Sea at July's four-day Volvo Dun Laoghaire regatta on Dublin Bay
The 2023 RS21 Cup season will see events in Scotland, Ireland and England as teams compete in a three-regatta venue, including Dun Laoghaire Harbour in July. To ensure sailors, new and old, get the chance to get up to speed…
32 boats finished the Royal Cork PY1000 Pursuit Race in the end, with Chris Bateman taking the win in an ILCA 6 in convincing style. Chris took away the new trophy and a cheque for €700
Saturday's 2023 Royal Cork Yacht Club PY1000 turned out to be a day for ILCA6/Radials, which took the top three prizes overall in breezy conditions for the ninth year of the competition, which saw entries topping 50 dinghies for the first…
Irish Cruising Club Commodore David Beattie continued his enthusiasm for seafaring on “a grand soft day”
David Beattie enthusiastically follows many maritime interests. But it was a special blessing for the Irish Cruising Club, that he should become their Commodore as the Pandemic began to tighten its grip, for he has been willing to serve as…
That winning feeling. Michael O Suilleabhain with his top team after a nail-biting finish at Howth on Sunday
With College teams from third-level institutions north and south and east and west, the annual Intervarsities Keelboat Championship in the final weekend of March in Howth Yacht Club’s J/80s was very representative of rising talent, and a complete spectrum of…
11th Hour Racing Team’s Malama starts to feel the first winds of a rain cloud in the distance on Thursday 30 March
It was the last thing they needed: a quick, deepening low-pressure system bringing winds in excess of 40 knots, a sickening sea state and another massive challenge for IMOCA sailors operating on the 34th day of racing in Leg 3…
National Yacht Club Match Racing Invitational logo
As previously reported on Afloat.ie, the National Yacht Club’s inaugural Student Match Racing Invitational is taking place in Dun Laoghaire this weekend 1-2 April. The event brings together the top varsity sailors in the country in what promises to be…
The first event of the RS Feva dinghy season is the Eastern Championships hosted by the Royal Irish Yacht Club on Dublin Bay on the 5th and 6th of May
With Summer 2023 lining up to be one of the biggest ever for the RS Feva double-handed youth dinghy class, the Dun Laoghaire Harbour yacht clubs have come together to offer coaching in the run-up - which is open to…
Paula Marten’s evocative painting of the early stages of the new Saoirse under construction in the Top Shed at Liam Hegarty’s Boatyard in Oldcourt . It will feature in her exhibition in Bushe’s Bar at the Baltimore Wooden Boat Festival from May 26th to 28th 2023
Let us imagine that you are both an enthusiast for Conor O’Brien (1880-1952), the Shannon Estuary’s great pioneering voyager, and that you are also one of those number-crunchers who enjoy calculating on what particular day significant anniversaries will fall in…

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]