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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
The Aran Island Ferry Naomh Éanna has been broken up for scrap but its bow is en route to Galway
The bow of the former Aran island ferry Naomh Éanna, which has been broken up for scrap, is en route to Galway. As The Irish Independent reports, Port of Galway harbourmaster Capt Brian Sheridan hopes to take delivery of the…
The SB20 World Championships is hosted by the Dubai Offshore Sailing Club (DOSC)
Today's start of  2024 SB20 World Championships at Dubai Offshore Sailing Club (DOSC) was postponed due to thunder and lightning storms. The five-day event will see its first race on Tuesday, 13th February, at 11:00 am. The Championships follow on from…
With 20 420 dinghies in attendance, the sailors are ready to focus on practical training and improvement at Kinsale Yacht Club
Kinsale Yacht Club is again hosting the annual Craftinsure Irish International 420 Dinghy Spring Training, marking the start of a new sailing season for the fleet. The event started on Monday, 12th February and will conclude with the 420 Munster…
Tom Gillard and Andy Thompson (from East Antrim Boat Club) number 15122 in 20 knots of breeze in the second race of the Fireball World Championships in Geelong, Australia
The 2024 Fireball Worlds is shaping up to be one for the ages, with a mix of light and heavy conditions on the second day, and the results so far offer no clear premonitions at this early stage. Even after…
Armel Le Cleac'h on the Max trimaran Maxi Banque Populaire XI has hit a speed of 47 knots in the Ultim Challenge race
Very early Monday morning, at 00:40hrs UTC, Thomas Coville, skipper of Sodebo Ultim 3 passed Cape Horn in third place on the Ultim Challenge solo round the world race. Coville crossed almost five days after race leader Charles Caudrelier and…
Businessman and sailor Enda O’Coineen
Businessman and sailor Enda O’Coineen is spearheading a 14 million euro project to build a replica of adventurer Ernest Shackleton’s most famous ship, Endurance. As The Sunday Independent reports, details of an “Endurance II” construction will be outlined at events…
Ian Travers (right) and Keith O'Riordan lead the Squib division at Kinsale Yacht Club's Custom Rigging Frostbite Series in Kinsale Harbour
After six races sailed at Kinsale Yacht Club's Custom Rigging Frostbite Series, Ian Travers and Keith O'Riordan sailing Outlaw are overall Squib keelboat division leaders on seven points, four points clear of Harvey Tucker and Harvey Matthews in Fagan. Springtime weather greeted the competitors for the third…
The Admiral's Cup will take place between 17th July - 1st August 2025 at Cowes, Isle of Wight, UK
Following The Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) announcement that it has received expressions of interest from all around the world to compete in the rebaked Admiral’s Cup, an advisory committee has been established for the 2025 event. The event is being…
Armel Le Cléac’h rounded Cape Horn this Sunday morning in the Ultim Challenge
Second-placed Armel Le Cléac’h crossed Cape Horn in the Ultim Challenge very manageable conditions this Sunday morning at 05:01:50hrs UTC. In fifth Éric Péron was about to enter the Pacific this morning. Third placed Thomas Coville had a big scare…
Gary Fyfe
Tributes have been paid to Red Bay RNLI helm Gary Fyfe after his sudden death on Thursday night (8 February). As the Belfast Telegraph reports, the 46-year-old died at the scene of a single-vehicle crash in Cushendall, Co Antrim. His…
A studio portrait of Irish polar explorer Ernest Shackleton
Celebrations are planned for Dublin and London for the 150th anniversary of the birth of Irish Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton on Thursday (15 February). Born in Co Kildare, Shackleton led three expeditions to the icy regions of the South Pole,…
Monkstown Bay Sailing Club Yard of Ale Trophy. Jacqui O'Brien Commodore MBSC presenting the trophy to winner Chris Bateman
Monkstown Bay Sailing Club's ever-popular Laser Frostbite League concluded in Cork Harbour on Saturday afternoon (February 10th). A cold north-easterly wind and heavy rain were present on the final day of racing. This did not phase the eager competitors in…
Denis Byrne of Crosshaven is multi-tasking in 2024 as Commodore of ICRA and Vice Admiral of the Royal Cork YC
Royal Cork Yacht Club's Denis Byrne has been elected Commodore of the Irish Cruiser Racing Association at today's national cruiser conference and AGM and will lead the national cruiser-racer body for the next two years. Byrne takes over from Howth Yacht Club's Dave Cullen,…
The 2025 edition of Kinsale Yacht Club's Sovereign's Cup and ICRA National Championships will be held from June 25-28, 2025
The 2025 ICRA National Championships will be held at Kinsale Yacht Club it has been confirmed.  Newly elected ICRA commodore Denis Byrne announced at Saturday's AGM that after examining several submissions, the cruiser-racer national championships would return to the biennial…
A scene from Cork Week 2022 in Cork Harbour
Sailing event organisers from across Ireland convened on Saturday to coordinate actions on the national sailing events calendar. The high-powered meeting, described as 'informal' was held immediately after the ICRA AGM at Dun Laoghaire Harbour and was attended by representatives…
Dun Laoghaire's Royal St. George Yacht Club is seeking to recruit a Boathouse Manager. The position is a permanent full-time position with some weekends and evenings subject to seasonal demands. Who we are: Located in Dún Laoghaire, the Royal St.…

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]