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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 hull of Dublin Bay Sailing Club's (DBSC) new committee boat with coach house mould attached
Between the delivery of its new committee boat and the strong entries received so far, it looks like a great season ahead for Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC). DBSC Commodore Ed Totterdell visited builder Gerry Smyth Boats on St. Brigid's…
Charles Caudrelier on board Maxi Edmond de Rothschild) passes Cape Horn in the solo multihull race around the world
French sailor Charles Caudrelier, the long-time leader of the Ultim Challenge solo multihull race around the world, has become the first to pass Cape Horn. The landmark was passed at 17:08:20hrs UTC on Tuesday, marking a significant moment in the…
Kenny Rumball at the helm of an RS21 one design keelboat in the first blustery race of the 2024 DBSC Spring Chicken Race on Dublin Bay. The series for mixed cruisers and one designs runs until March 10
Multiple championship-winning J109 Joker II of the Royal Irish Yacht Club won the first race of the DBSC Spring Chicken Series on Sunday. The results are downloadable below. As Afloat reported previously, strong westerly winds reduced the fleet to 17…
Movanagher Lock on the Lower Bann
Waterways Ireland advises all masters of vessels on and users of the Lower Bann navigation in Northern Ireland that due to the installation of new lock gates at Movanagher Lock, the lock will be closed for a period of around…
Winner of the Tall Ships Voyages Awards Nominating Organisation of the Year: Gorey Youth Needs, represented by Kate Murphy pictured MC Brian Turvey, Commander Brian Matthews, ST Irl Chairman Robert Barker, and Lord Mayor of Dublin Daithi de Roiste
Trainees recognised for their exceptional contributions to Sail Training Ireland's Tall Ships voyages in 2023 were honoured at the Annual Awards Ceremony at the Mansion House in Dublin. The award ceremony, held on February 3rd, 2024, was hosted by the…
Top speeds of 16.7 knots were achieved at the SB20 Sailing Asia Pacific Championships at the Dubai Offshore Sailing Club
The Dubai Offshore Sailing Club witnessed the grand finale of the SB20 Sailing Asia Pacific Championships on February 4, 2024. Emerging as the overall champions on the third and final day from a fleet of 38 were Team Xcellent from…
 A video of the 75th Dragon Edinburgh Cup has been produced by the British Dragon Class Association. Scroll down for the vid.
Members of the British Dragon Association (BDA) and their guests came together at the Royal Thames Yacht Club in Knightsbridge, London, for the BDA’s Annual General Meeting and Dinner in January. The evening kicked off with the AGM, where outgoing…
Royal Irish Yacht Club's Saskia Tidey is a member of the GB squad in the race to win the inaugural Puig Women’s America’s Cup
Royal Irish Yacht Club's Saskia Tidey has been named as a member of the Pathway squad in the race to win the inaugural Puig Women’s America’s Cup and retain the Youth America’s Cup for Britain. In a busy year for…
The National Yacht Club's Mark Lyttle in downwind mode on day three of  the ILCA 7 Great Grand Masters World Championship fleet in Adelaide, Australia
In the ILCA 7 Great Grand Masters 35 boat fleet,1996 Olympian Mark Lyttle of Dun Laoghaire lies fifth in Adelaide, Australia after six races sailed. The 1996 Atlanta Olympian, who won the Grand Master title in 2018 on home waters,…
Teams lined up in Dun Laoghaire Harbour in the semi-final race for the Elmo Trophy in August 2023
Entries are now open for RYA Northern Ireland’s Team Racing Programme, following on from a successful coach development weekend last month. This RYANI programme, which is the first of its kind for Northern Ireland, aims to provide more double-handed pathway…
Wexford Quarter Tonner Snoopy, the 2021 ICRA Class Three National Champion, rounds a mark ahead of a J80 one-design keelboat in the blustery first race of the 2024 DBSC 'Spring Chicken' Series on Dublin Bay
A fleet of up to 25 brave DBSC 'Spring Chicken' entrants braved strong westerly winds for the first race of the six-race series on Sunday (February 4). The blustery 25-knot westerly winds presented quite the challenge for the first race…
Belfast Lough's Conrad Simpson starts a race in ILCA 7 Great Grand Masters World Championship fleet in Adelaide, Australia
Royal St. George's Sean Craig of Dun Laoghaire Harbour has lost the overall lead in the ILCA 6 World Championships Grand Masters Fleet in Adelaide, Australia. The Irish champion took an early lead in Sunday's opening two races, scoring two…
Dun Laoghaire's Viking Marine-sponsored DMYC Dinghy Frostbite Series has been cancelled for a third week in a row due to strong winds on Dublin Bay. "Winds were forecast at 17/18 knots but gusting to 32 knots from a SSW direction",…
The mysterious shipwreck washed up on Canadian coast
Archaeologists in Newfoundland are planning a survey of a wrecked ship which has recently washed up on the coast and may be up to 200 years old. As the BBC reports, the 24 metre-long shipwreck was found by a boy…
Squib keelboat racing on the second day of Kinsale Yacht Club's Custom Rigging Frostbite Series with overall leader Outlaw (Number 785) sailed by  Ian Travers and Keith O'Riordan to windward of third-placed Allegro (134) sailed by Colm Dunne and Daniel McCloskey 
After three 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 five points, two points clear of Harvey Tucker and Harvey Matthews in Fagan. KYC Club mates Colm Dunne and…
At sea level, the majestic granite construction of Dun Laoghaire Harbour blends so well with the many of the older buildings on the town's waterfront and its coastal surroundings that, after 200 years and more of its existence, many folk…

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]