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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
New battle to land €55m Volvo Ocean Race
DUN LAOGHAIRE-Rathdown County Council is determined not to miss the boat for the next round of applications due for the Volvo Ocean Race writes Claire Murphy in yesterday's Evening Herald. The council is already discussing the 2012 competition after missing…
Howth Yacht Club Celebrates Successful Spring Warmer Series
A highly successful 6-race Spring Warmer One-Design Sailing Series concluded at Howth Yacht Club on Saturday 24th April, having attracted 42 boats in four classes which experienced widely varying conditions over the three weekends of the event. The light winds…
Sonatas on song at Scottish Series
All men and women are equal on the race course at the Brewin Dolphin Scottish Series, not least in the highly competitive one design Sonata class. The 22 foot pocket sized keelboat provides some of the best value racing at…
New sites for Round Ireland
Two new websites have sprung up over the weekend in support of the 2010 Round Ireland Yacht Race. The Wicklow town sailfest now has an online presence, as do Team Daft, the Daft.com-sponsored entry from blind adventurer Mark Pollock and…
43 boats enjoyed mixed conditions in Dublin Bay for the Laser SB3 fleet's start-of-season event from the Royal St George, the Mitsubishi SB3 Easterns. Gareth Flannigan, defending champion, did the business and his McCready Sailboats team of Jeremy Tomalin and…
Records Broken For First ISORA Race
A record number of starters came to the start line at the East Mark in Scotsman's Bay on Saturday. 22 boats started from an entry list of 23 boats. This has not been seen in ISORA for many years. The…
Familiar Names at Front of 2010 DBSC Fleet
Winds gusting to 26–knots ushered in the 2010 Dublin Bay Sailing Club Summer season this afternoon for a combined fleet of up to 300 yachts sailing on Dublin Bay. Inspite of new course configurations and some new race marks there were…
Sonic Zoom Wins HYC's Spring Warmer Series
As the class Easterns sailing kicked off across the bay in Dun Laoghaire, Howth Yacht Club's Spring Warmer series ended and Sonic Zoom (Ryan/White) were announced overall winners after a finale off Lambay island today. Results from the event are…
Fine Turnout for First ISORA Race
Team Windmill got a great start this morning for the first race of ISORA. Over 20 make the startline on Dublin bay and are steering a course for Holyhead in Wales. More later.
Dublin Bay Sailing Club Unveil New Courses Tomorrow
Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) has unveiled a range of new courses for its new summer sailing season, the biggest in the country, that starts tomorrow. Arising out of congestion on Thursday's evening races the club has been motivated to…
RORC Yacht of the Year to Race Round Ireland
Just a few months after being named the RORC ‘Sailing School Boat of the Year’, Sailing Logic has announced it will be racing in June's Round Ireland race and July's Cork Week. This year the yacht's (now named Malta Puma)…
Irish Crew Celebrate St. Patrick's Day
Irish crew taking part in the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race today celebrated St Patrick’s Day onboard by decorating the boat with green white and orange and having a party. The Cork entry in the Clipper Race hit a…
New Technology Played Role in Miami
'Vorsrung dur Technick' played its part in last weekends top Irish result in Miami the Irish Times reveals this morning. Peter O'Leary unleashed a secret weapon in Miami signalling a potent return to the Olympic circuit scoring second overall at…
Cammas breaks Jules Verne record
French Skipper Franck Cammas and his crew aboard their maxi trimaran Groupama 3 broke the Jules Verne record for a single circumnavigation of the world over the weekend, completing the loop in 48 days 07 hours 44 minutes and 52…
Green Dragon media man wants another shot
Guo Chuan, media crewman on the Green Dragon, says he wants another bite of the Volvo Ocean Race cherry. But this time, he wants to go as sailor. Chuan, who joined the Irish Green Dragon crew as the sole Asian…
California Dismasted in Clipper Race
California, one of ten entries competing in the Clipper 09-10 Round the World Yacht Race, has been dismasted in the latest storm to hit the fleet as the teams race across the Pacific Ocean to San Francisco. All the crew…

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]