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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 and boats dressed overall for a multi-coloured parade of sail on the River Liffey as part of the annual 'Blessing of the Boats' ceremony at Poolbeg Yacht and Boat Club on Sunday, May 12th. Scroll down for a photo gallery of participating boats
Up to 30 yachts and motorboats joined the annual Poolbeg Yacht and Boat Club parade of sailing down the River Liffey and out into Dublin Bay on Sunday afternoon, a tribute to deceased members of the Dublin City club. The…
Seán Waddilove (left) and Robert Dickson
Robert Dickson and Seán Waddilove have emerged best of the two Irish contenders to compete in the men’s skiff event at Paris 2024 this summer. The Dublin crew — from Howth Yacht Club and Skerries Sailing Club respectively — qualified…
The National Yacht Club J109 Ruth was skippered by Tom Shanahan with a youthful crew to win overall in the first ISORA Cross-Channel Race of 2024 from Dun Laoghaire to Pwllheli, a 90-miler that took over 21 hours to complete
The Shanahan family J109, Ruth, of the National Yacht Club, pulled off a late-race victory in Saturday's marathon ISORA race from Dun Laoghaire to Pwhelli in North Wales. The win is a significant result in one of the biggest ISORA…
Carrigaline Choral Group perform at sunrise off Roches Point in Cork Harbour as part of the Royal Cork Yacht Club's support of the annual Darkness into Light national fundraiser
On Saturday morning, the Carrigaline Choral Group participated in the annual Darkness into Light national fundraiser with the Royal Cork Yacht Club. Up to 30 pleasure crafts sailed out into Cork Harbour before sunrise to support the charity Pieta, which…
Sailors ashore at Royal Cork Yacht Club at Crosshaven in County Cork after a day of racing at Volvo Cork Week Regatta
The excitement is building as the start of the Volvo Cork Week 2024 regatta approaches. With the event scheduled to begin on Monday, July 15th, the Royal Cork Yacht Club (RCYC) organisers say the club is buzzing with preparations for…
Victory on this iconic 3,900 nautical miles race across the North Atlantic from Lorient to New York is Ambrogio Beccaria's third major Transatlantic success
Italy’s Ambrogio Beccaria on his all-Italian designed and built Musa 40 Alla Grande Pirelli added the hugely prestigious Transat CIC Class 40 title to his steadily growing collection of solo and short handed ocean racing honours this morning when he…
Ireland's Robert Dickson and Sean Waddilove of Howth and Skerries are lying in eighth place at the  49er Europeans in La Grande Motte, France
With one last gold fleet race of the 49er European Championships in La Grande Motte, France, scheduled on Sunday morning before the medal race decider in the afternoon, Ireland's Robert Dickson and Sean Waddilove of Howth and Skerries aren’t counting their…
Johnnie Phillips' Elan 333 Playtime (National YC) won DBSC's non-spinnaker Cruisers 5a Saturday race
Dublin Bay Sailing Club's third AIB Saturday race of the 2024 season was sailed on May 11th in light to medium south-easterly winds on a hazy Dublin Bay. No results were posted in IRC Zero, as the first ISORA Cross-channel…
Ward Park Pond dredging
Eels in a park pond? About 150 eels were found during de-silting work in the ponds in the 37-acre Ward Park in the centre of Bangor on Belfast Lough. That’s about 5,000 km from their spawning area, the Sargasso Sea…
Good old reliables. After a successful season in Ireland in 2023, the First 50 Checkmate XX (Dave Cullen & Nigel Biggs HYC) is Entry No 1 for the three day Howth Wave Regatta, starting Friday May 24th
When it was announced that the three-day Howth Wave Regatta 2024 would be in the last full May weekend of Friday 24th to Sunday 26th, there was a certain thoughtful sucking of the molars among the waterfront pundits. For this…
A turnout of fourteen boats for DBSC Thursday race is indicative of the strength of the Flying Fifteen Class across the Dun Laoghaire waterfront
With five Dun Laoghaire-based Flying Fifteens away in France at the European Championships, a turnout of fourteen boats for last night’s DBSC Thursday race is indicative of the strength of the Class across the waterfront and even at that there…
A Galway hooker sails by during An Tostál Currach Racing Festival in Salthill, Galway 2023
Calico sails of Galway Hookers and currachs will be visible off Salthill promenade this weekend for “An Tóstal”, a two-day regatta celebrating maritime life. Male, female and junior traditional currach racing will take place, with Galway Hooker racing in the…
Ballyholme Yacht Club 1984 and 1988 Olympian Bill O'Hara competing at the 2023 ILCA/Laser Masters Championships hosted by the Royal St. George Yacht Club
Olympians and former champions are set to compete in this year's ILCA Masters Championships at Howth Yacht Club. The event comes just nine months after the North Dublin club hosted the national championships for the 2023 class last August. One…
Europe’s longest and oldest inland dinghy race takes a 30-nautical mile course from Lisloughrey pier, near Cong at the north end of lough Corrib to Galway city
The organisers of the annual Cong-Galway race have decided to change the date to August 31st. An initial date of June 2nd had been set when registration opened this week. Europe’s longest and oldest inland dinghy race takes a 30…
The 2022 Inistearaght Race line honours winner Aurelia (meaning the 'golden one') skippered by Chris Power Smith
With just two weeks to go until the start of Kinsale Yacht Club's biennial Inishtearaght Race sponsored by the Matthews Centre, all of the boats that raced the 2022 edition are returning for another shot at offshore glory in the 280-miler…
The Master of Glandore. The late Don Street in full flow at a 21st Century Glandore Harbour YC awards ceremony, hitting the usual interesting dress-style note with a tweed jacket in high summer rather than his customary reefer
Donald MacQueen Street Jnr of Glandore and the Caribbean and formerly New York has gone from among us after an extraordinary life of nearly 94 years, in which he experienced a sometimes picaresque existence. Throughout it, he significantly encouraged, instructed,…

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]