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Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

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
Craig Opens Dragon Worlds with 19th
Andrew Craig, Mark Pettit and Brian Mathews have opened their account at the 2011 Dragon world Championships in Melbourne, Australia with a 19th place. The early leaders of the regatta are a legendary British trio Lawrie Smith, Ossie Stewart and…
New Courses for All Fleets at Scottish Series
Today (7 January) Clyde Cruising Club, organisers of sailing's Brewin Dolphin Scottish Series, announced exciting developments for the 2011 event. The Scottish Series will see a refreshed offering, both on the water and shoreside, benefitting competitors and spectators a like.…
New Fleet for World’s Longest Yacht Race, the Clipper Round the World Race
Sailing legend Sir Robin Knox-Johnston has announced a brand new fleet of 70-foot racers for the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race. Top naval architect Tony Castro has been commissioned to design the Clipper 70 fleet that will compete in…
Kearney and Odell Add World Mirror Title
After a solid performance in testing conditions Ross Kearney and Max Odell have won the Mirror World Championships in Albany, Australia today. The Royal North of Ireland pair finished the series with two good races on the final day to…
Royal North Pair Lead Mirror Worlds
Ross Kearney and Max Odell lead the Mirror World Championships in Albany, Australia with the final day of sailing tomorrow. The Royal North of Ireland pair have fought back hard to be on top of the 61-boat fleet after 13…
Trials Announced for London Olympic Selection
Trials at Holland regatta and at Weymouth this year will be the focus for Olympic campaigners this season. The new procedures released by the Irish Sailing Assocaition are set out in the attachments below and 2011 is going to be…
Beneteau Celebrates Success Down Under
French Manufacturer Beneteau, the world's largest production yacht builder is celebrating success in December's Sydney-Hobart race. Following the historic success of 2009 when two FIRSTs occupied the first two places in the overall IRC and ORC rankings, the 2010 race…
Velux 5 Oceans Skippers Prepare for Storm
Velux 5 Oceans skippers are battening down the hatches as a summer storm surges towards the fleet in the Southern Ocean - with giants swells and winds of more than 40 knots expected. “I’m a little anxious, I want to…
Belfast Pair lie Fourth at Mirror Worlds
Ross Kearney and Max Odell lie sixth overall after seven races at the Mirror World Championships in Albany, Australia. The Belfast sailors, who won the European Championships when they were held in Sligo last Summer, are up against strong competition…
SB3 Sailors Cry Foul at Dun Laoghaire Parking Fees
Dissatisfaction is growing among SB3 sailors regarding the cost of parking and membership at Dun Laoghaire's top yacht clubs. In correspondance seen by Afloat.ie, one leading sailor said that clubs "need to carefully consider their pricing policies or otherwise we…
Waterford Tall Ships 'Will Attract Half a Million'
The Tall Ships Races are expected to attract more than half a million visitors to the Suir estuary when they come to Waterford in six months' time. The four-day event, which begins on 30 June, brought 500,000 spectators to Waterford…
Dick Goes in Search of Double Win
 Three years after his victory in the first Barcelona World Race with Damian Foxall (in 92 days, 09 hours, 49 minutes and 49 seconds at an average speed of 11.13 knots), Jean-Pierre Dick is doing the double-handed three cape route…
Foxall Recalls Barcelona Race
In February 2008 Caherddaniel sailor Damian Foxall with Frenchman Jean-Pierre Dick (FRA) crossed the finish line of the first ever Barcelona World RACE as winners onboard Paprec-Virbac 2. Now the Barcelona Race organisers have released an eve of race interview…
Fleet Arrives in Hobart
Sean Langman and Anthony Bell's 100-foot super maxi Investec Loyal was the second yacht across the finish line of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, arriving last night just after midnight, three and a half hours behind the provisional line…
Podcast: Peter O'Leary Interview
At 27 years of age Peter O'Leary has more achievements than many Irish sailors gain in a lifetime. Ireland's Beijing Olympic representative talks in this podcast below about his first tack in an Oppy (aged four), and how those formative…
Bass Strait Lives up to Tough Reputation
The forecast gale-force conditions made good today for the bulk of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race fleet with yachts experiencing 40-50 knots of gale to storm-force winds from the west-southwest -- together with massive seas. The toll today was…

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]