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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
Yachts Invited to Join Scottish Series for Round the Island Race
Clyde Cruising Club, organiser of the Brewin Dolphin Scottish Series, is inviting yachts from around Scotland and further afield to join in Scotland's Round the Island Race. The one day event takes place during the Scottish Series in Tarbert, Loch…
Sharkbait earns home win in SB3 Easterns
The Howth crew of Ben Duncan, Brian Moran and Rick Morris on ‘Sharkbait’ are this year’s SB3 Eastern Champions after the six-race series ended on home waters with the local boat tying on points with Cork visitor ‘Sibelius’ (Kieran Dorgan)…
Carroll Lifts Antigua's Bluff Cove Trophy
Antigua Sailing Week has been running for 45 years and the Bluff Cove "Bell" is probably the most famous regatta trophy awarded so there was great celebrations at the weekend when an Irish sailor got his hands on it writes…
Racing Updates: May Bank Holiday Sailing Wrap up!
There's familiar names at the top of the leaderboards after a busy May Bank holiday weekend afloat on Irish waters. Here's the Monday morning wrap up: The Kinsale Yacht Club Spring Series ended in a gale. We have the pictures,…
Tralee's Kennedy and Browne Lead 420s on Dublin Bay
More testing, ideal sailing conditions greet youth sailors this morning on Dublin Bay for the fourth and final day of competition at the Mitsubishi Youth Championships. Up for grabs are places on the national youth team to represent Ireland at…
Derry Crew Announced for Clipper 11-12 Round the World Yacht Race
The sailing crew representing the inaugural Northern Ireland entry in the Clipper 11-12 Round the World Yacht Race, Derry-Londonderry, have been announced at an event in the historic maritime city of Southampton. More than 360 adventurers travelled from all over…
Results: Duncan and the Sharkbait Crew Win SB3 Easterns
HOWTH YACHT CLUB. SB3 EASTERNS (O'ALL) 01/05/2011 SB3: 1, Sharkbait Duncan/Moran HYC (12.00); 2, Sibeluis K Dorgan CSC (12.00); 3, Flutter A Algeo RStGYC (14.00); 4, Ridgefence.com P Kennedy RNIYC (15.00); 5, Yeti S Craig RStGYC (17.00); 6, Toucan 3…
Raging Bull Top Again in First ISORA Race
A 'tough opener' is how Commodore Peter Ryan has described the first ISORA offshore sailing race of the season from Holyhead to Dun Laoghaire yesterday. Inspite of the difficult conditions though there was little change at the top of the…
Sharkbait Sails in to the Lead at SB3 Eastern Champs
Four points separate the top four boats going into today's second day of sailing in the SB3 Eastern Championship at Howth Yacht Club. Yesterday's opening races were sailed in fresh (but later moderating) north-easterlies, big swells and lumpy seas which…
Dublin Bay Win is No Xtravagance for Byrne
Colin Byrne sailing Xtravagance won in both IRC and ECHO handicap divisions in this afternoon's first Dublin Bay Sailing Club Saturday race of 2011. The Royal Irish Yacht Club entry beat the Commodore's yacht Gringo (Tony Fox) for the top…
Squibs Start South Coast Champs in 30 Knots (Photos Here!)
The first of the 2011 Irish Squib Class Regional Championships is being held in Kinsale over the May Bank Holiday Weekend. Boats from Dublin and Ulster are joined a local Munster fleet for some great racing today. Scroll down for…
Guilfoyle Consolidates in Day 2 of Youth Nationals (Photos Here!)
Royal Cork's Seafra Guilfoyle consolidated his position at the top of the Laser 4.7 fleet with a second and sixth placing in  day Two of the Mitsubishi Youth Nationals. Dublin Bay presented more challenging conditions for the 300 sailors than…
Colm Newport is Afloat's Sailor of the Month for April
Captain Colm Newport is the Afloat.ie/Irish Independent "Sailor of the Month" for April in honour of the key role he played in ensuring the continuity of Irish sail training through a difficult period. Colm Newport was the Master of the…
Doran Leads Day One of Youth Nationals (Plus Photos!)
Courtown's Phliip Doran leads the Laser Radial class after the first day of sailing at the Misubishi Youth National Championships on Dublin Bay today. Scroll down for Gareth Craig's on the water photos. A steady 10 knot north easterly wind…
21 Confirmed for ISORA's First Race of 2011
Offshore racing continues its comeback and the first sign of renewal comes tomorrow morning on Dublin Bay when 21 boats muster for the first race of the Irish Sea Offshore Racing Association (ISORA) from Dun Laoghaire to Holyhead. It's all…
Niall Dowling's New J111 among 100 Boats Bound for Le Havre
The RORC Caribbean 600 was the first points scoring race for the 2011 RORC Season's Points Championship. However, the Cervantes Trophy Race marks the start of the RORC European race circuit with 11 races scheduled for destinations in Northern France,…

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]