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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
Cork Week's Class Zero is Brimming with Talent
Cork week's Class Zero reads like a who’s who of high performance racer-cruisers who start the biennial regatta in the morning. Dave Dwyer’s Mills 39, Marinerscove.ie is the in form boat, having been crowned us overall winner at last month’s…
O'Leary Shows Visitors Around Cork Harbour
Irish Olympic Star sailor and Cork harbour local Peter O'Leary was on board the American TP52  Interlodge for a gentle warm up in Cork Harbour this afternoon and Afloat went with him. From the East Coast of the USA, Austin Fragomen is…
Cork Week Official Opening - Photos here!
No sooner had the Clipper fleet left the Lee on Friday than a second important Munster sailing festival, in as many weeks, was getting underway. Royal Cork organiser Peter Deasy declared Cork Week regatta officially open this afternoon. The rain held…
Heavier Cork Stays in Touch
Day three of Race 13 and the competition is as close as ever as theteams navigate their way through the busy shipping lanes of the EnglishChannel. The Clipper 68s are separated by a mere eight nautical milesand the heavier Challenge…
Lizzy McDonnell Tops Howth's 420 Dinghy Regatta
HOWTH YACHT CLUB DINGHY REGATTA (O'ALL) 10/07/2010 Laser RADIAL: 1, Derek Sheehan MYC (2.00); 2, Darren Griffin MYC (4.00); 3, Conor Murphy HYC (5.00); Laser 4.7: 1, Cillian McGreer HYC (3.00); 2, Michael Donnelly MYC (4.00); 3, Sean Anglim HYC…
Cork Week Bound Yacht Rescued by Ballycotton Lifeboat
A yacht bound for Cork Week regatta sought assistance from the emergency services tonight when their vessel ran into difficulties eight miles east of Ballycotton Bay in East Cork.  The yacht was sailing from Arklow to Cork Harbour to attend…
Heavier Cork Clipper Trying to Stay in Touch
With just 550-miles in which to prove themselves in the short sprintrace to Ijmuiden in The Netherlands, Race 13 promises to be an exciting edge of the seat battle between the ten Clipper teams. The Cork team is now back…
Welsh Weather Washes out Powerboat Grand Prix
Appalling weather conditions washed out Saturday's racing at the Pwllheli Grand Prix of the Sea. Consistent rain and strong winds kept the powerboats moored in the marina as the teams remained indoors to keep themselves dry and mull over tactics…
Aztec III Makes the Running in Cruisers One
DUBLIN PORT Dublin Bay Sailing Club Results for 10 JULY 2010 BENETEAU 31.7 -Echo 1. Bluefin Two (M & B Bryson), 2. Prospect (Chris Johnston), 3. Attitude (D.Owens/T.Milner) BENETEAU 31.7 - 1. Prospect (Chris Johnston), 2. Bluefin Two (M &…
Clipper Fleet Get off to Flying Start from Cork
The penultimate race of the Clipper 09-10 Round the World Yacht Race is underway. At 1700 local time (1600 GMT) the cannon fired from the Royal Cork Yacht Club's start line at Weaver's Point near Crosshaven at the mouth of…
Students Progress to Quarter-Finals
Ireland's student match racers are through to the quarter finals of the University Match Racing World Championships, finishing fifth after the round robin series. The final races in the round robin are now over with some big changes in the…
Fleet Descends on Cork Week
More than 2000 sailors are descending on Crosshaven for Cork Week writes Louay Habib. They will race in fourteen different classes over a variety of courses ranging from the complex harbour course to the fast Trapezoid Course in Atlantic swell.…
And They're Off! Clipper Fleet Leaves Cork for Final Leg of Clipper Race
After a thrilling week of festivities the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race Fleet has left Cork to begin the final leg of the race. The Clipper Fleet left Port of Cork City Marina in a Parade of Sail at…
Southbound again - Cork Special Podcast
This week's podcast is all about sailing in the real capital - Cork. We talk to Hannah Jenner, from Cork's entry in the Clipper Round the World Race, Peter Deasy tees up Cork Week, we chat to Optimist supremo Peter…
North's Cork Week Sail Service Starts Today
North Sails will be operating their overnight sail repair service at Cork Week, starting from this morning, 9 July, through to the following Friday. The drop off and collection point will be situated at Gate 3 at the Crosshaven village end…
Silver Fleet for Irish 49er
Winds of up to 20 knots near Gdansk in Poland tested 49er crews at the European Championships yesterday as the fleet neared the split for silver and gold. Top Irish team Ryan Seaton and Matt McGovern improved on their 38th…

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]