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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
Bullet for Goodbody in Medemblik
Tim Goodbody of the Royal Irish Yacht Club took a gun at day two of the OK Dinghy European Championships in Medemblik, Netherlands. The weather produced a late finish after a complete change in conditions with very unstable offwind winds…
Oona Wins in Howth
HOWTH YACHT CLUB.TUE + SAT SERIES 3 (RACE) 27/07/2010 17 FooterSCRATCH:1, Oona P Courtney;2, Rita Lynch/Curley;3, Sheila D Bothwell;17 FooterHCAP:1, Echo B & H Lynch;2, Sheila D Bothwell; 3, Rosemary Curley/JonesTUESDAY SERIES 3   PuppeteerSCRATCH:1, Mojo Stanley/Callen;2, Yellow Peril N Murphy;3, Papagena K…
Something Else is First in DBSC Cruisers One
DUBLIN PORT Dublin Bay Sailing Club Results for 27 JULY 2010 CRUISERS 1 - 1. Something Else (J.Hall et al), 2. Jalapeno (Dermod Baker et al), 3. Powder Monkey (C.Moore/M.Byrne) CRUISERS 2 - 1. Cor Baby (Keith Kiernan et al),…
La Solitaire du Figaro: The Bay of Seine Stage is Set
The 45 sailors competing on the 41st edition of La Solitaire du Figaro got off today at 14:00 under overcast skies in the bay of Le Havre with 8/9 knots of breeze from varying north-westerly direction.  Bar the two individual…
Cowes Week Radio Now Online!
With memorable material stretching back over the years, Cowes Radio is already streaming on the Internet. "With over a million minutes downloaded last Cowes Week, and the explosion of audio visual media content on the Internet this decade, I'm confident…
34 Irish Sailors at RS Feva Worlds
34 Young Irish sailors are taking part at the 2010 RS Feva Worlds, in Carnac, France. The 140-boat fleet was broken into four groups for the first day of racing yesterday in 9-12 knots, with Irish crews in the top…
Goodbody Second at OK Europeans
Former Olympic Finn sailor Tim Goodbody lies in second place after day one of the OK Dinghy Europeans in Medemblik. 67 sailors from 11 nations are taking part in the event. Two races were held in a solid force 3-4 with…
Corkbound Figaro Begins Today
The 45 competitors taking part in the 2010 edition of the classic summer solo race, La Solitaire du Figaro, are set to sail from Le Havre for Gijón on a 515 nautical mile leg tomorrow, Tuesday 27th July; the first…
1720s make Calves Week Comeback
With over 60 confirmed entries at present, the 2010 Calves Week in Schull is expected to top the 80 boat mark for the annual West Cork festival of sailing. The week long sailing event is once again supported by the…
Byrne is National Dragon Champion
The 2010 Irish Dragon Boat Championship is sponsored by Belfast Harbour, North Down Borough Council and hosted by Royal North of Ireland Yacht Club. The championship was a one, two, three for Royal St George Yacht Club in Dún Laoghaire…
World Wins Match Racing Challenge
Ireland took on the world at the weekend in the inaugural Ireland v. The World Match Racing Challenge, but it was the global alliance that came out on top in the end, with 36 wins over Ireland's 29. Light winds…
McCready Sailboats top Irish SB3 in Lake Garda
After 14 races, Jerry Hill, Joe Lewellyn and Grant Rollerson (GBR) are World Champions in the Laser SB3 Class, with scores including 3, 5, 1, 4, 1, 11, 1, 1, 27, 18, 1, 2, 8, 9. Catching up with Jerry…
Disappointing End for Irish Lasers
Things unravelled for Dun Laoghaire sailor Matthew O'Dowd towards the end of the Laser Worlds in Largs, Scotland. Once the fleets were split into Gold, Silver and Bronze, O'Dowd's run of good fortune seemed to hit a brick wall. A…
Roller Coaster Takes Overnight Race in a 'Virtual Calm'
Report on Race 7 – Dun Laoghaire – North India Buoy – 23rd July 2010. From an entry list of 27 boats, 13 boats came to the line in Dun Laoghaire for the 7th ISORA race. We had two new…
Victory for La Réponse in RORC Channel Race
This year’s Channel Race was blessed with good breeze around the 130 mile course with sunshine during the day and warm air temperature at night. The overall winner was the First 40, La Réponse, owned by Peter Morton and RORC…
May's Ibis is Puppeteer National Champion
HOWTH YACHT CLUB.  PUPPETEER NATIONALS (O'ALL) 25/07/2010  Puppeteer  SCRATCH:  1, Ibis G May (8.00);  2, Harlequin Clarke/Egan (21.00); 3, Yellow Peril N Murphy (26.00);  Puppeteer  ECHO:  1, Arcturus McAuliffe/McDermott (8.00);  2, Sanderling D & B Jennings (9.00);  3, Nefertari Morgan/Murray…

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]