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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
Irish Paralympic Sailing Crew Finish Seventh at IFDS worlds
#IFDS – The IFDS World Championships have drawn to a close and Ireland's sailors John Twomey, Anthony Hegarty and Ian Costello have finished seventh overall, a disappointing outcome for the Kinsale trio given they were tied for the top spot…
Worrall Thompson Thanks Irish Wife at Fundraiser for 470 Duo
#WORRALL THOMPSON - Celebrity chef Anthony Worrall Thompson - in Dublin at the weekend for a fundraiser for Olympic hopefuls Ger Owens and Scott Flanigan - has credited his Irish wife with being the "rock" that kept him going through…
Early Poll Shows Kenefick Leads in Sailor of the Year Vote
Quarter ton sailor and All Ireland Sailing Champion George Kenefick has established an early lead in the readers poll for the 2011 Sailor of the Year Award. The Crosshaven helmsman has 81 votes so far, nearly triple that of the…
Lyons Hopes For a Special Cork Week in 2012
#CORK WEEK - Pat Lyons of Royal Cork Yacht Club has spoken to website The Cork News about the city's hopes for the 2012 Cork Week regatta. Crosshaven in Cork Harbour will host the club's biggest regatta - which takes…
Irish Paralympic Team Making a Splash at IFDS Worlds
#PARALYMPICS - Irish team members John Twomey, Anthony Hegarty and Ian Costello are making waves at the World Championships for disabled sailors in Florida this week. Inside World Parasport reports that the trio from Kinsale Yacht Club are tied for…
Sail Training Int Appoints New CEO
#TALL SHIPS – Sail Training International has appointed a new Chief Executive. He is Peter Cardy, Chief Executive of the charity Aquaterra and a former Chief Executive of the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA). He joins the STI team…
ISAF Release Details of London Olympic Sailing Competition
#OLYMPIC – It must be getting close to the Olympic regatta if the official Notice of Race has been published. ISAF have released the formal details for London 2012 Olympic Sailing competition in its Notice of Race (NOR) document this…
Worrall Thompson to Judge Celebrity Chef Night in Aid of Dublin Olympic Duo
#WORRAL THOMPSON – Mischievous spoofers have taken to YouTube to poke fun at Anthony Worrall Thompson who appears at Malahide Rugby Club this Saturday on Olympic sailing fundraising duty for Irish pair Scott Flanigan and Ger Owens. The Ready Steady Cook star…
AIB No Longer Covering Sailing Club Subs for Staff
#SAILING CLUBS - Sailing enthusiasts on AIB's staff have taken a blow to the wallet as the bank is to stop paying club membership fees for employees, the Irish Independent reports. In an e-mail seen by the paper, AIB head…
Derry-Londonderry Continues to Lead Clipper Race
  #CLIPPER - Derry-Londonderry continues to make steady progress towards Singapore on their southerly route as they maintain their lead over the last 24 hours. In a cruel twist of fate Gold Coast Australia's surge of success on their northerly…
#OLYMPIC – Dublin Race officer Jack Roy has been congratulated by the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) this morning on his prestitgious appointment as a race officer for the London Olympics. He had been shortlisted last November but confirmation of one…
Who Will Be the 2012 Irish Sailor of the Year?
#SAILOR OF THE YEAR – At home and abroad, Irish sailors once again delivered an impressive range of results in 2011. Review our top sailors by month here. The reviews are also in print in Afloat's Sailing Annual 2012 in…
Dublin Bay 2012 Announces 'Four Star Pizza' as Title Sponsor
#DUBLINBAY2012 – The organisers of Dublin Bay 2012, the ISAF Youth Worlds bound for the capital's waters in July kicked off the new year with an announcement of a title sponsor today. It's a fair achievement in the current climate…
NATO Task Force Neutralises Two Pirate Mother Ships
#Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean – Over the last 3 days in two separate operations Units of NATO'S Counter Piracy Task Force 508 successfully identified and neutralised two ocean going dhows that had been pirated and were subsequently being used…
Plucky Performance Gives Sophie 13th Overall
#optiworldsnz – Tralee's Sophie Browne got no chance to improve on her 13th overall when the last race of the Optimist World Championships in New Zealand was abandoned yesterday due to lack of wind. The only Irish competitor in the…
Showcase for Galway at VOR 'Irish Day' in Adu Dhabi
#VOLVO OCEAN RACE - Galway was showcased on Friday 6 January as part of special a 'Irish Day' celebration in Abu Dhabi, where the Volvo Ocean Race fleet is getting ready to embark on its next leg. Galway Bay FM…

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]