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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
Marine Minister Showcases Galway at Volvo Race Start
#VOLVO OCEAN RACE – As the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-2012 kicks off tomorrow (5 November) from Alicante in Spain, Minister for Agriculture, Marine and Food Simon Coveney TD joined Tourism Ireland today, at a reception for key Spanish and international…
George Kenefick is October's Sailor of the Month
#SAILOR OF THE MONTH – George Kenefick of Crosshaven is the Afloat.ie/Irish Independent Sailor of the Month for October after rounding out an already successful season with an inspired performance in the Student Worlds in France. The 23-year-old helmsman won…
Legends on Show in Alicante, Photos by Rick Tomlinson HERE!
#LEGENDS REGATTA –This week's 16-boat 'legend' fleet racing in Alicante is a far throw from the six-pro teams waiting for this weekend's VOR start proper but everyone in the Spanish port knows that it is the cross-section of old ketches…
Clyde SB3 Class Continues to Grow
#SB3 – Following the distribution of the 'Clyde SB3 Class Proposal' in September an information and social evening was held on 27th October at The Lansdowne Bar & Kicthen in Glasgow's West End. Despite some last minute cancellations 25 people…
Dragon Gold Cup for Kinsale in 2012
#DRAGON – Irish sailors will be vying for the prestigious Dragon Gold Cup from 8th-15th September 2012 when it is contested on Irish waters by Kinsale Yacht Club. Leading the Irish challenge will be Dun Laoghaire sailor Martin Byrne who…
Galway's 2012 VOR Stopover Will Be 'Bigger and Better'
#VOLVO OCEAN RACE - Organisers for next year's Volvo Ocean Race stopover in Galway have promised the event will be "bigger and better" than the previous race visit in 2009. http://www.afloat.ie/sail/events/volvo-ocean-race http://afloat.ie/port-news/galway-harbour/ John Killeen, president of Let's Do It Galway,…
Five Regional Events Planned for 2012 Flying Fifteen Season
#FLYING FIFTEEN – At Monday's Irish Flying Fifteen Fleet AGM at East Antrim Boat Club 2012's sailing fixtures were agreed with five regional events planned. The cost of new boats now running to €20k was seen as a deterrent to…
Colin Succeeds Bradley as Irish Fireball Chief
#FIREBALL – Experienced Dun Laoghaire helmsman Neil Colin from the Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club has succeeded Cormac Bradley as Irish Fireball dinghy Class Chairman. Bradley stays on as Irish liaison with Fireball International and Press Officer.
Derry-Londonderry Arrives in Western Australia
#CLIPPER ROUND THE WORLD – Derry-Londonderry has arrived in Geraldton Western Australia at the end of the 4,800-mile Race 4 from Cape Town. The team finished in ninth place, just one-tenth of a mile ahead of Celtic rivals, Edinburgh Inspiring…
Green Dragon Crew Say 'Ola' from Alicante!
#VOLVO OCEAN RACE – Ireland's Ocean Race Green Dragon is basking in Spanish sunshine and settling into her new role as a 'legend' as our photo from Alicante shows below. The photo was taken before she left the dock for…
Sail Training Fleet to Race to Weymouth and Portland
#TALL SHIPS – A large fleet of Sail Training vessels will race to Portland on the UK south coast in the summer of 2012. On the second weekend in June, 300 young people from Dorset and London will gather in…
Call for Irish SB3s to Head for Scotland in 2012
#SB3 - As the Dublin Bay Sailing Club SB3 class debates the merits of Saturday versus Sunday club racing with a contracted fleet size next season there has been a call from the North for Irish crews to head to…
ISORA 2012 Looking at Trackers and 'Virtual' Marks
#IRISH SEA – The Irish Sea Offshore Racing Association (ISORA) is pushing ahead with plans to incorporate 'virtual' marks into at least some of it's offshore programme in 2012. Afloat.ie reported on the prospect last September. The moves come as…
Could Green Dragon be Ireland's Next Youth Boat?
#VOLVO OCEAN RACE – Plans for the future of Ireland's Round the World racer Green Dragon are still up in the air since the €2million high tech sloop failed to sell after the last race two years ago. Support is…
Galway Revives Ancient 'Royal' Yacht Club
#YACHT CLUB – Volvo Ocean Race Organisers in Galway have revived a 120-year old Yacht Club with 'Royal' connections. The 'Royal Galway Yacht Club' (RGYC) was established in 1892 but had not been heard of for quite some time. But…
Model Yacht Racing Series Underway in Dun Laoghaire
#MODEL YACHTS – Dun Laoghaire's Winter Model Yacht RC Laser sailing programme got off to an enthusiastic if somewhat wet start on the Bank Holiday Monday. The impromptu gathering was intended to dust off the cobwebs but instead proved a…

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]