Menu

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
Royal Cork Celebrates 2011 with 'At Home' Regatta
Royal Cork Yacht Club Admiral Paddy McGlade presided over the Crosshaven Club's annual 'At Home' Regatta yesterday, an event dedicated to families with entertainment this year from the Carrigaline Pipe Band. Among a number of  fun events such as Tug…
Hard on Port Wins Cruisers III DBSC Cruiser Challenge Event
It looked like Supernova (Ken Lawless) would continue her success on Dublin Bay with weekend wins in a blustery DBSC end of season fixture for the Cruisers III class until a broken boom in the penultimate race gave the event…
Espey Wins Lasers, Local Sailor Takes Radials at Lough Derg Nationals
Predictably Olympic campaigners were to the fore at the 2011 Irish Laser National Championships yesterday but host club Lough Derg Yacht Club in Dromineer, Co. Tipperary are celebrating the first time in thirty years that a Laser sailor has won…
Schull Welcomes World Team Racers
The seaside village of Schull was en fete yesterday as, in bright sunshine, locals and visitors alike turned out in huge numbers to welcome sailors from around the globe to a world event based in a village setting. Already, the…
McCartin and Kinsella are New Irish Fireball Champions
Barry McCartin and Conor Kinsella, representing Cushendall Sailing Club, Royal St. George Yacht Club and UCD Sailing Club are the 2011 Irish National Fireball Champions after another commanding performance on the water. However, this time their talent wasn’t directed at…
Changing fortunes and Weather at Dun Laoghaire Fireball Nationals
Day two report: After two days and 6 races the 26-boat Irish Fireball Nationals are set up for a very interesting last day. At the top of the scoreboard, tied on 11pts are Simon McGrotty & Ruairi Grimes and Barry…
Ruffles Wins DBSC Ruffian Race
Dark clouds brought heavy rain but also great sailing conditions for Saturday's Dublin Bay Sailing Club race. The Cruiser classes were racing for Cruiser challenge honours leaving the one designs to the regular bay race.  Results below:  FLYING FIFTEEN Race…
Flying Fifteens Make the Front Page
An early start for the Dun Laoghaire Flying Fifteen fleet paid off yesterday when up to eight of the 20-foot keelboats ventured from their moorings at the National Yacht Club (NYC) across Dublin Bay and up the river Liffey for…
Kenefick Steers Chimp to Overall Win at Half Ton Classic Cup
Even a complete lack of wind and racing couldn't dampen the spirits of the Half Ton sailors on the final day of the 2011 Half Ton Classic Cup. While they waited in vain for the wind to fill in they…
Cork Week Changes Dates for 2012
Next year's Cork Week regatta at Royal Cork Yacht Club, one of Ireland's biggest sailing events, has changed dates from 30th June – Friday 6th  July to 7th-13th July 2012  following consultation with both local and overseas participants. The decision was…
Only Derry-Londonderry Remains in the Northern Hemisphere
With the lead pack sent to enter the final 1,000 miles of Race 2 of the Clipper 11-12 Round the Word Yacht Race, Assistant Race Director, Justin Taylor predicts a three horse battle for the podium positions into Rio de…
Software Instrumental to Rescue of Rambler 100 Crew
Search and rescue mapping software developed in Rhode Island was "instrumental" in efforts to retrieve crewmembers from the stricken Rambler 100 off Fastnet last week. The SARMAP software, developed by ASA (Applied Science Associates, Inc) provides rapid predictions of the…
BMW J24 Europeans' Entries Reach 40-Boat Mark
Entries for the BMW J24 European Championships, to be hosted by Howth Yacht Club in two weeks’ time, have now reached the 40-boat mark from eight nations, making for an impressive fleet when racing starts on September 12th. Irish and…
Garvey and Darrer Win Cork Harbour Race
Colman Garvey and Martin Darrer's Projection 35 True Penance was the Class one IRC winner of the fourth sailing race in the Royal Cork YC O'Leary Insurances League. The race was held in sunshine and a nice breeze inside Cork…
Kenefick Steering Chimp to Half Ton Success
Top Cork youth sailor George Kenefick at the helm of Chimp has tightened the strangle hold on the lead of the Half Ton Classic Cup and now has a 14-point margin over  nearest rivals off Cowes. One time series leader…
Deluge Over, Upd8 Wins DBSC Race
The deluge that hit Dun Laoghaire yesterday afternoon did not dampen the spirits of the Dublin Bay Sailing Club fleet who emerged from the harbour for a brisk Thursday evening race. Austin Whelan's First Class 8, Upd8 made the most…

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]