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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 dinghy park in ILCA 6 Masters World Championship which is the venue for the ILCA 6 Masters World Championships 2024
Irish Masters ILCA/Laser champion Sean Craig of the Royal St. George Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire Harbour shot straight to the top of the ILCA 6 Masters World Championship with two fourth places scored in breezy conditions in the opening races…
Kinsale's Cian McCarthy and Sam Hunt will recall their Sunfast 3300 Cinnamon Girl Sydney Hobart Race campaign at February 10th's ICRA conference in Dun Laoghaire Harbour
Kinsale's Cian McCarthy and Sam Hunt who competed in the Sunfast 3300 Cinnamon Girl in December's Sydney Hobart will be keynote speakers at next weekend's (Saturday, February 10th) ICRA conference at the Royal Irish Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire Harbour.…
Solo French yachtsman Charles Caudrelier leads the Ultim Challenge round the world race onboard the Maxi Edmond de Rothschild
Having been forced to slow for two days Ultim Challenge leader Charles Caudrelier has built some meaningful speed towards the east again and is heading towards Cape Horn at a little over 20 knots this morning with some 1200 nautical…
33 teams are competing in the SB20 Asia Pacific Championships in Dubai
Day two of the Dubai Duty Free SB20 Asia Pacific Championships, hosted by the Dubai Offshore Sailing Club, saw turbulent winds ranging between 18 to 20 knots. As regular Afloat readers know, despite every effort, Irish boats were thwarted in…
A race gets underway in the 2024 Monkstown Bay Sailing Club Laser Winter League at Refeen Creek in Cork Harbour
Local dinghy ace Chris Bateman leads the Monkstown Bay Sailing Club Laser Winter League 2024 overall after six races sailed. Ronan Kenneally lies second after two discards applied with Paul O'Sullivan in third place. A full tide in Cork Harbour…
Leader Charles Caudrelier is hoping that Cape Horn is passable in the near future
On this fourth weekend of the Ultim Challenge, the five skippers racing are all hoping for better things in the near future. Leader Charles Caudrelier is hoping that Cape Horn is passable in the near future. Armel Le Cléac'h and Thoma…
Laurent Charmy’s J/111 SL Energies Groupe Fastwave from France was the narrow overall winner of the 2022 SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race from Wicklow, closely ahead of the J/99 Snapshot (Mike & Richard Evans, Howth YC)
It’s one thing to declare an interest in contesting an up-coming iteration of the biennial 704-mile SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race from Wicklow. But it is quite something else to divvy up an entry fee, and sign on the dotted…
The final 2024 ISORA calendar (v 9 above) is structured to avoid as many clashes as possible while facilitating boats doing other events
Irish Sea Offshore Racing Association (ISORA) has signed off on a 'final' race schedule for 2024  As regular Afloat readers know, the association was quick off the blocks at its agm when it published a draft schedule for its 2024 fixtures last…
Brendan Foley's First Class 8, 'Allig8r' from the Royal St. George Yacht Club, competing in the 2023 ICRA National Championships at Howth Yacht Club. The 2024 event will be staged by the Royal Irish Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire from 30th August- 1st September
The Notice of Race and online entry has been published for the Unio-sponsored ICRA National Championships 2024 at the Royal Irish Yacht Club this August. Organisers plan to split fleets into Class 0, Class 1, Class 2, Class 3 and…
A CEP model for the Horn passage if the Maxi Edmond de Rothschild had passed on February 4
The Maxi Edmond de Rothschild team has said this morning that their Ultim Challenge leading skipper Charles Caudrelier has made the decision to put his race on hold for an indefinite period because of the weather conditions which were expected for…
 ICRA Commodore Dave Cullen
The Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA) has provided more details of its 2024 conference, which will be hosted by the Royal Irish Yacht Club on Saturday 10 February. This year’s keynote speaker will be Jason Smithwick, director of the RORC…
Keelboat and cruiser racing is back on Dublin Bay after the Christmas break with the return of DBSC's Spring Chicken Series this Sunday that features a wide mix of boats including club-based J80s
This Sunday's AIB-sponsored DBSC Spring Chicken Series from Dun Laoghaire Harbour will take place at the National Yacht Club. From February 4 to March 10 (first gun 10:10), six races will be run using a progressive handicap on a case-by-case basis…
29ers will be part of the lineup for the 2024 Youth Sailing National Championships at Royal Cork Yacht Club in April
Royal Cork Yacht Club Crosshaven, Co. Cork is all set to host the Youth Sailing Nationals from 4th to the 7th of April. The event promises great sailing at Easter in Cork Harbour, and entry to the event is now…
Ireland's top ten ILCA 7 World Championship finisher Finn Lynch will race in the 53rd Trofeo Princesa Sofía Mallorca in April
Over 300 teams from more than fifty countries have already registered to participate in the 53rd edition of the Trofeo Princesa Sofía Mallorca by Iberostar, the first regatta of the year that will see all ten sailing classes compete, which…
Transatlantic “cruise”, anyone? The very functional Out of the Blue was rowed to Transatlantic success by a Delft University crew which was 50% from Ireland
As January progresses, the news starts to zip back from the finishes in the Caribbean of the Transatlantic rowing races from the Canaries, and last year it was a Wicklow team that successfully hit the headlines. This year it’s a…
Finn Lynch of Ireland (222017) finished ninth overall in the ILCA7 World Championships  in Adelaide, Australia
When Finn Lynch of the National Yacht Club finally secured Ireland's Olympic 2024 ILCA 7 place last August when qualifying opportunities seemed to be rapidly evaporating, he said it was “like getting a monkey off my back”. Since then, he…

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]