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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
First Sail for Galway Hooker in Arab Waters
#GALWAY HOOKER – The near century old Galway Hooker boat Nora Bheag, was finally taken out of her container in perfect condition in Abu Dhabi yesterday with plenty of water and sponges deployed to to keep her wooden hull moist…
Sophie Takes a Break as Optimists Go Team Racing
#optiworldsnz – After three days of individual racing the focus changed at the OptiWorlds today with the first day of team racing seeing 40 national teams sail in warm sun and light airs but for Ireland's Sophie Browne, the sole…
Aussies and Brits Fight for Fireball World Title
  #FIREBALL – As was to be expected, the challenge for the 2012 Fireball Worlds title has become a showdown between the Aussies and the Brits. There is no Irish representation at the Western Australia event, just six months on…
Gordon Maguire Lifts Sydney-Hobart Trophy
#SYDNEYHOBART – Dublin Sailor Gordon Maguire won the Rolex Sydney-Hobart Race, a high point in his career as a leading international professional sailor based in Australia writes W M Nixon in the Irish Independent. Twenty years ago, the young Howth…
Sophie Drops to 16th After Six Races in New Zealand
#optiworldsnz –Sailing for Ireland, Sophie Browne of Tralee Bay Sailing Club has dropped from 7th to 16th overall after six races sailed at the Optimist World Championships, according to provisional results from organisers this morning. Browne scored a 16th in…
Seventh Overall, Browne Stays in Contention at Optimist World Champs
#OPTI – Ireland's Sophie Browne stayed on course for a top result at the Optimist World championship in New Zealand yesterday counting four more top 20 results in the 210–boat feet to be plced  seventh overall after five races sailed.…
Sophie Browne's Sailing CV
#OPTIWORLDS–  Sophie Browne – Sailing • Sails from Tralee Bay Sailing Club and Royal Cork Yacht Club. • Started sailing at 5 years of age. • Sailing on the Optimist circuit in Ireland for a number of years. • Has…
Ireland's Sophie Browne in Top Ten at Optimist World Championships
#OPTIWORLDS – Tralee's Sophie Browne is in the top ten of the Optimist World Championships in New Zealand after yesterday's first race of the event. The sole Irish competitor produced a top opening result in her blue division of the…
New Year, New Rigging for Team Sanya
#VOLVOOCEANRACE – A pre-Christmas rig failure on board the Discover Ireland backed entry 'Team Sanya' in the Volvo Ocean Race continues to thwart the Chinese-Irish sailing team. The crew are hopeful now of fitting new rigging to the 70-foot ocean…
Lucky 14 Bags Ainsworth's Sydney-Hobart Title
#SYDNEY-HOBART – With the wind fading for the smaller yachts so this morning (local time) Stephen Ainsworth's Loki was announced the handicap winner of the 2011 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race. At a presentation on board their white four year…
Four Top Ten Results Show Browne's Promise
#OPTIWORLDS – Irish Youth Sailor Sophie Browne of Tralee Bay SC and the Royal Cork YC has settled into her pre Optimist World Championships training regime at Napier Sailing Club on the beautiful Hawke's Bay on the East coast of…
Line Honours Decided, Who Will Be Sydney-Hobart's Overall Winner?
#SYDNEYHOBART – With the line honours podium decided in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, focus now shifts to the handicap race under IRC for the Tattersall's Cup. The closest finish in the last 29 years of the Rolex Sydney…
Ireland's Browne Part of Strong Female Line up at Optimist Worlds
#OPTI – In a further boost for Irish Optimist hopes at this year's world championships, Kerry's 14-year old Sophie Browne finished in the important top quarter of the pre-worlds event, taking 21st from 214 starters in today's final rounds of…
J Boats to the Fore on the Hamble
The Hamble Winter Series is one of the most hotly fought off season regatta series in the UK with an entry list that puts it right at the forefront of competitive sailing. There are of course many reasons for this.…
Discover Ireland's Volvo Entry 'Sanya' Makes Landfall in Madagascar
#VOLVOOCEANRACE – The Discover Ireland backed entry in the Volvo Ocean Race Team Sanya - the sailors and the boat - have all safely arrived in Talañero (sometimes called Taolagnero) in Madagascar, an unexpected pitstop in leg two due to…
Yachts Prepare to Chase Sydney-Hobart Race Record
#OFFSHORE – Over its sixty-seven year history, the race record at the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race has only been broken ten times, an average of once every six and a half years. Given that the current fastest elapsed time…

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]