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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
Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli and INEOS Britannia battle on the Barcelona racecourse on Sunday 29 September
INEOS Britannia and Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli were kept on standby prior to racing in the Louis Vuitton Cup Final on Sunday (29 September) as a solid Mediterranean ‘Garbi’ breeze pushed frustratingly above the stipulated 21-knot upper wind range. Eventually…
Claus-Peter Offen's Wally 101 y3k heads towards Saint-Tropez
The International Maxi Association’s annual inshore series will be finalised this week with Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez, the last of the five events in the 2024 IMA Mediterranean Maxi Inshore Challenge (MMIC). This began with PalmaVela in May while its…
The overall winner of ISORA's 2024 Musto ISORA Series, the National Yacht Club's J109 Ruth (the Shanahan family) pictured during a blustery April 2024 ISORA coastal race start on her home waters of Dublin Bay
The National Yacht Club's J109 Ruth (the Shanahan family) won overall in ISORA's 2024 Musto ISORA Series, bringing home the prestigious Wolf's Head Trophy to Dun Laoghaire's East Pier club after a thrilling coastal race finished in light airs on…
Fintan Cairns's Mills 31 Raptor was the final race AIB DBSC Saturday Series winner on Dublin Bay on Saturday, September 28th
The Fintan Cairns Mills 31 Raptor saved the best until last to win a seven-boat IRC One division on the water, on IRC, and on ECHO in the final race of the AIB DBSC Saturday Series on Dublin Bay.  The Royal Irish Yacht Club…
Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli stalks INEOS Britannia on the second day of their epic first-to-seven-points Louis Vuitton Cup Final series
After a near two-hour delay waiting for a southerly ‘Migjorn’ thermal breeze to eke its way above the wind limit of 6.5 knots, finally racing got under way between INEOS Britannia and Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli just after 4pm CEST…
Sunday's 2024 DMYC Kish Race on Dublin Bay has been cancelled due to a bad weather forecast
Given a deteriorating weather forecast, Sunday's Kish Race on Dublin Bay has been postponed to next weekend.  With the DBSC Summer Series racing concluding this Saturday, DMYC organisers will consider hosting the race on Saturday or Sunday next weekend (October…
The first race of the 2024 Royal Cork Yacht Club (RCYC) Autumn League on Sunday has been cancelled due to a strong wind forecast
The first day of the Royal Cork Yacht Club (RCYC) Autumn League on Sunday (September 27th) has been cancelled. The club's race organising committee announced the postponement on Saturday morning after reviewing the weather forecast. Winds are expected to gust…
Keith Hunt in grandfather-with-Drascombe mode on his beloved Kinsale Harbour

Keith Hunt 1934-2024

28th September 2024 W M Nixon
Keith Hunt has gone from among us with dignity, just 21 days short of his 90th birthday. While we knew him mainly as a man of many and various sailing talents - with 16 Fastnet Races and several dinghy championship…
Tivat Pine square and the tall ship Jadran in Montenegro
The Ocean Race Europe 2025 will finish in Boka Bay, Montenegro, with the IMOCA fleet racing into the Adriatic Sea for the first time, to connect European waters in a celebration of sport, sustainability and collaboration. After starting in Kiel,…
The Northern Ireland Matt 1080 Elixir skippered by Ryan Wilson was one of 11 boats entered into tonight's now cancelled ISORA night race from Dun Laoghaire
Due to strong winds, tonight's (Friday) ISORA Night Race from Dun Laoghaire has been cancelled for a second time this summer on safety grounds. During race time, northwest winds are expected to gust up to 30 mph this evening. On…
INEOS Britannia and Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli in action on the first day of the Louis Vuitton Cup Final on Thursday 26 September
In stunning and breezy Barcelona conditions, INEOS Britannia and Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli went toe-to-toe throughout the first two races of the Louis Vuitton Cup Final and at the end of the day shared a race win apiece. With a…
Moulditch buoy off Greystones and back may be the course for ISORA's night race from Dun Laoghaire Harbour
ISORA chief Peter Ryan will call Friday's (September 27th) course early on the morning of the race based on the latest weather forecasts. "I’m calling the course first thing in the morning. It’s either east Kish and back or Moulditch…
Cork's Philip Bendon (IRL 290) (pictured in the foreground) competing at the RS21 World Championships 2024 in L'Escala, Spain
Cork's Philip Bendon is lying mid-fleet after three races sailed at the RS21 World Championships 2024 in L'Escala, Spain. Bendon, sailing with Joel Carey, Harry Phelps, and James Curtis, is in 27th place in the Bay of Roses contest. The fleet…
Battered but unbowed – Nick Kats with Teddy under her shortened mainmast in Iceland's northwest fjords
It was a mean-spirited response to the summer of 2024's often very poor weather in Ireland, to console oneself with the thought that it was even worse if you were trying to cruise in Scotland. But in any case, as…
Sir Ben Ainslie and Jimmy Spithill eye each other from either side of the Louis Vuitton Cup Trophy during the pre-final press conference on Wednesday 25 September
‘To win the America’s Cup, first you have to win the Louis Vuitton Cup.’ It is one of the most famous phrases that surrounds a contest with the richest of histories dating back 173 years, and it’s now on the…
History in the making – Melges 15s outnumbering IDRA 14s at Howth
With Howth YC's 43rd Autumn League for six Saturdays over-lapping with the four weekend multi-race Claremont League Dinghy Series, Howth Yacht Club has total boat numbers racing each weekend pushing towards the hundred mark. Yet despite the Club's success in…

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]