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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
Cruising Body Launch new Northern France and Channel Islands Section
The Cruising Association, Britain's leading organisation for cruising sailors, is to launch a new specialist section for those who cruise Northern France and the Channel Islands. The new section will be launched at the association's headquarters, CA House, in London's…
Offshore in the Caribbean as a Round Ireland Warm Up?
Is there any way you could get away with saying that a sailing race in the Carribbean this winter is essential training for next June's Round Ireland Race? As unlikely a story as it may sound the warm water series…
Vodafone Enables live broadcasting of Opti Worlds NZ racing
The latest major sponsor to confirm its involvement with the Optimist sailing Worlds in New Zealand is Vodafone and the result promises to be a major leap forward for spectatorship of dinghy racing. Tralee's Sophie Browne will compete for Ireland…
McCleery and Dougan Win Western Championships at Larne
The Flying Fifteen Western Championships took place in the Larne at the weekend and were hosted by East Antrim Boat and Yacht Club. 22 crews descended on the town in what was the last event of the season. Andy McCleery…
Rolling Fog Greets Competitors for First Race of Royal Cork Autumn League
Day One of the Autumn Sailing Regatta commenced at 8.30 am yesterday when Royal Cork Yacht Club was jam packed and rocking with the excitement of the Ireland vs Italy rugby match writes Claire Bateman. (SCROLL DOWN FOR GALLERY) After…
Level on Points, Irish Melges Campaign is Pipped on the Line
Prof O'Connell Reports from the Final Day of the Melges US Nationals Level on points, tied for first place, we headed into the final race of the US Nationals on Conor Clarke's "Embarr" knowing that we had to beat the…
Lack of Wind Forces Cancellation of Howth Autumn League
This morning's second race of the WD 40 sponsored Howth Yacht Club Autumn League was cancelled due to lack of wind.
New Sponsor for Cork Laser Frostbites
Curradinghy is the new sponsor for the October and November Frostbite Laser dinghy leagues which start this Sunday at Royal Cork Yacht Club. Curradinghy has recently been appointed southern dealer for Laser. The 4.7 and Radial fleets have grown in…
Snakes and Ladders on Day Two of Melges Nationals
Prof O'Connell, the spinnkaer trimmer on Ireland's Melges 24, reports from Day 2 of the US Nationals When I was 15 I read about "The Wizard of Zenda" - aka Buddy Melges, who won a bonze medal is the Flying…
Dun Laoghaire Entry Starts Well at Melges 24 Nationals
After five days of training on Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, Ireland's single Melges 24 team finally kicked off the Melges 24 US Nationals aboard Conor Clarke's "Embarr". Representing Dun Laoghaire, the team aboard - Nathan Wilmot (helm), David Hughes (tactician) Conor…
Matt Davis is September's Sailor of the Month
Matt Davis is the Irish Independent/Afloat.ie "Sailor of the Month" for September. The youthful Skerries skipper and his crew of all the talents from Fingal successfully defended the Irish Sea Offshore Championship with a dedicated season-long campaign in their Sigma…
Countdown to Endeavour Trophy
A total of 25 UK champion sailors including last year's winning crew – Christian Birrell – have signed up for this year's Endeavour Trophy, which is taking place at the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club, Burnham-on-Crouch in a week's time (7-9…
Derry-Londonderry Fifth in Clipper Leg Three
Derry-Londonderry, one of the ten international teams competing in the Clipper 11-12 Round the World Yacht Race, has won the fight for fifth place in Race 3 of the 15-race series in a contest that went right down to the…
DBSC 2011 Overall Award Winners (Provisional Results)
David O'Brien reports in this morning's Irish Times Sailing Column on the success of the Dublin Bay Quarter tonner Supernova. The win is among 40 trophies announced by Dublin Bay Sailing Club. The full 2011 Overall results and prizewinners list…
O'Connor and McHaile Win Sligo's GP14  Open
As ever Rosses Point in Sligo was a beautiful spot to arrive to bright and early Saturday morning. Some may have been up at an ungodly hour, but it's well worth it to come to the top of the hill…
Sea Sickness Rules Irish Sailor Out of World Race
Galway sailor Frankie Leonard is stepping down as Team Sanya's media crew-member following a bout of seasickness in the recent 2,000-mile qualifying passage for the Volvo Ocean Race (VOR). The team Sanya entry is a Chinese-Irish entry in the race…

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]