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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
DBSC J109s Strut Their Stuff on Dublin Bay
J109s were to the fore in Cruisers One sailing this afternoon as westerly winds of six knots but gusting up to double that speed – and shifting by 30 degrees – made for plenty of place changes for the Dublin…
Four fleets Contest Royal Alfred's Baily Bowl
There will be a light start this morning to the Royal Alfred's Baily Bowl event on Dublin bay. The Dublin Club will provide a full weekend of racing run from the National Yacht Club. Three races on Saturday and two…
Five Boats Fight for ICRA's Offshore Honours
Only five boats came to the line for the inaugural Irish Cruiser Racer Association (ICRA) Offshore Trophy at Crosshaven tonight but what the sailing fleet lacked in numbers it made up for in close competition inside Cork Harbour. Under spinnaker…
Royal Cork Boats Prepare for Dublin Departure
Sailing Boats are preparing to depart Crosshaven tonight on the Irish Cruiser Racer (ICRA) feeder race to Dun Laoghaire. Among those competing is the new Roxy 6 pictured below at Crosshaven marina by Bob Bateman. Ireland's entire Commodore's Cup team…
RSGYC take on Cumberland Cup
A Royal St George YC team will be the sole Irish representatives at the Royal Thames YC Cumberland Cup, the oldest perpetual trophy in yacht racing, with racing kicking off today at Queen Mary SC. The event is a two-boat…
French Present Main Challenge for O'Leary in Scotland
In preparation for this year's Commodore's cup ICRA members will be interested to know that France is fielding a strong sailing challenge at the Scottish series in two weeks time which means Royal Cork's Anthony O'Leary will get all the…
Diva Wins Dublin Bay Sailing Club Dragon Race
Try as they might neither the SB3s (16 raced), the Dragons (eight) or the Flying Fifteens (12) managed to successfully fly spinnakers on a reach to New Ross mark tonight. It was therefore a disappointing first leg but one positive…
Round Ireland Book Goes on Sale
Fred Drew, president and a former commodore of Wicklow SC, has launched a compilation of stories about the Round Ireland Yacht Race. The book goes on Sale next week from the publishers at Originalwriting.ie/bookshop/ or directly from WSC in June.…
Electro to Sponsor Howth Yacht Club Lambay Races
The annual Howth Yacht Club Lambay Race - Howth Regatta - is to be called the Electro Lambay Race following confirmation of sponsorship by Electro Automation Group, widely regarded as Ireland's premier automation specialist and an international leader in such…
ISAF Seeks Olympic Reform
ISAF has published its report into how best to promote sailing as an Olympic sport. The Olympic Commission draft report (here) identifies making sailing a better spectator sport as a major priority for Olympic events from now on. The section…
Entries go to the Wire for ICRA feeder
RCYC has issued a last reminder for anyone still wishing to take part in the feeder race from Cork to Dun Laoghaire on Friday. ICRA members will be interested to know that this promises to be a challenging and exciting…
Royal Cork's Jamie McWilliam Heads up Team Hong Kong
Cork's Jamie McWilliam will lead this year's Hong Kong Commodore's Cup team made up with former Irish Cup boats. Having finished fifth overall in 2008, surprising many of the more seasoned campaigners in the process, McWilliam and his teammates were…
Dublin Bay Old Gaffers Association Prepare for Poolbeg Regatta
Gaff rigged and traditional boats are welcome to join the Dublin Bay Old Gaffers Association in a celebration of traditional sailing and music and craic on the week-end of May 28th-30th. It is part of Poolbeg Yacht and Boat Club's annual regatta and…
Irish Skippers Share Solo Spoils
Irish skippers Paddy Cronin  and Peter Olden won the out and return races of the Solo Offshore Racing Club's Poole and Back coastal race. Cronin won the out leg, being port hoist spinnakers the whole way to Poole,  sailing Rod…
Pinocchio Out in Front in Howth Yacht Club
Noel Davidson's Puppeteer Pinocchio emerged as winner of Tuesday night's Howth Yacht Club race with Cloud 9 (C Feeley) second and Enigma, D. Butler third.  HOWTH YACHT CLUB TUE + SAT  SERIES 1 (RACE) 11/05/2010  17 Footer  SCRATCH:  1, Rita…
Light Airs No Obstacle in DBSC
As wide a selection of Irish dinghy classes as you could imagine struggled around a light air Dublin Bay Sailing Club course this evening but in spite of its feeble strength the north westerly breeze held and allowed everything from…

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]