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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
Old Gaffers Hit the Liffey
The first opening of the Samuel Beckett Bridge to accommodate a flotilla of sailing craft dressed overall will be the highlight of water activity on the River Liffey in the coming weekend. Organised by the Dublin Bay Old Gaffers Association…
ICRAs wrap up with blue skies
Whoever sold their soul for the weather, it was worth it. Three days of consistent sunshine and sailing breeze is nearly unheard of on Dublin Bay, but by whatever means, the Liebherr ICRA Cruiser Nationals went off without a hitch. …
Perfect Conditions on Day Two of ICRA Nationals
Blue skies coloured Dublin Bay again yesterday with a sea breeze of 12 knots providing perfect sailing conditions for the ICRA Nationals, writes Claire Bateman. The results illustrate the closeness of the competition in most divisions. Anthony O’Leary in Antix is…
ICRA Nationals – Antix Leads IRC Zero in Action Packed Opener
Early morning fog resulted in a short delay for sailing at the start of day one of the three day ICRA Liebherr National Sailing Championships sailed out of the Royal St George Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire today writes Claire…
More ICRA Nationals Photo Action Here
We've added more photos from today's opening races of the ICRA Championships to the Afloat Gallery. Click here to see more from photographer Bob Bateman.
ICRA Nationals 2010 Kick off in Style - First Race photos here
This morning's opening race of the Liebherr 2010 ICRA National Sailing Championships has kicked off in style on Dublin Bay and although the 120 boat fleet  (drawn from 20 clubs) was shrouded in a sea mist for a time race…
Comm Cuppers Round Island, not Ireland
Two of the three boats in Ireland's Commodore's Cup team are booked in for the annual Round the Island race in the Solent on June 19. The race, which already boasts 1,200 entries, kicks off the day before the Round…
Red Rhum Romps Home in DBSC Cruisers Two
In a day that presented little chance for sailing, last night produced a steady south easterly breeze of 6-8 knots for Thrusday evening's Dublin Bay Sailing Club race. Red Rhum (J.Nicholson) made the most of the summer conditions to win…
Sailing West for Round Ireland
The rule is simple; Keep Ireland and all her islands to starboard. For the captain and crews undertaking the Round Ireland Yacht race this summer with Sailing West on their Sunfast 37 and Reflex 38, one can add the following…
RCYC holds Irish Examiner Round the Island Race
Royal Cork holds its Irish Examiner Round the Island Race this Sunday, with three different courses for boats of different speed.  Warning gun for all classes is 12.55pm. The courses are as follows: Optimists, RS Fevas, Taz - Spike Island(P).Lasers,…
VOR Organiser to Receive Honorary Doctorate
Volvo Ocean Race organiser John Killeen is to be honoured by NUI Galway this June with an honorary doctorate. The Let’s Do It Ireland Chairman, who was responsible for bringing the hugely successful Volvo Ocean Race to Galway, is on…
Mills Designs to the Fore in Commodore's Cup
Yacht designer Mark Mills of Wicklow, the Irish Sailor of the Year, will be represented by at least five sailing designs on three different teams at the next Commodores Cup to be held off Cowes in August. It will be of…
Cork Crosses the Line Eighth
Cork finished eighth in their first race back together again in the Clipper 09-10 Round the World Yacht Race. Sailing across the finish line at dawn with their medium weight spinnaker flying, those watching from the shore line could hear the…
Round Ireland Race Secures Sponsor
Wicklow Sailing Club has secured a title sponsor for its 30th anniversary Round Ireland race next month.The 2010 race sets sail under the banner of Conway Media as title sponsor on June 20th, according to race organiser Dennis Noonan. The deal was…
Overnight Sail Repair Service for ICRAs
ICRA members sailing in Dun Laoghaire will be interested to know that North Sails Ireland have announced they are to run an overnight sail repair service during the Liebherr Cruiser Nationals. The service will be run out of the Stena…
Cork Week Publishes Class Bands
Cork Week has published provisional class bands for July's regatta. So far there are seven entries in IRC super zero, 15 in class IRC zero, 17 in IRC one, 14 in IRC two, 21 in IRC 3, 19 in IRC…

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]