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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
The 2024 DBSC racing marks chart
The ever-changing need for compliance has forced Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) to position seven high-tech marks, and some changes in colour requested by members have meant that the familiar old chart of the bay needs a refresh. To identify the…
The start of the first ILCA 7 race at French Olympic Week 2024 in which Ireland has two sailors competing, Ewan McMahon of Howth and Finn Lynch from Dun Laoghaire
French Olympic Week kicked off on Monday, 22nd April 2024, at Hyères (Cote D'Azur). More than 800 sailors from 90 nations competed, including a full Irish squad just months before the Olympic regatta. The week-long event is the last major…
Maiden arrives at Cowes on Tuesday 16 April after more than 150 days racing offshore in the Ocean Globe race
Maiden has won the McIntyre Ocean Globe Race, taking first in IRC handicap rankings against a 14-strong fleet of very experienced and committed sailors. And Maiden’s sailors have also been written into the history books as the first ever all-women…
Having been successfully deployed at the Irish Sailing League, Dublin Bay Sailing Club will trial robotic marks in its summer racing in April and May
Not content to bask in its 140th-anniversary glory, Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) will experiment with using the latest yacht race technology this season to deliver the largest racing programme in Ireland. DBSC Commodore and Race Officer Ed Totterdell, who…
The Sun Fast 3600 Black Sheep took the overall win in RORC's 2024 Cervantes Trophy race
RORC Racing Manager Steve Cole reported glorious conditions for the Cervantes Trophy race start off the Squadron Line with 14 knots from the north west giving a fast downwind sail through the Western Solent. The 110-mile race to Le Havre…
Competitors arrive at a robotic mark in the INSS J80 fleet of keelboats at the inaugural Irish Sailing League hosted by the Royal Irish Yacht Club on Dublin Bay
Kinsale Yacht Club emerged as the winner of the inaugural Irish Sailing League 2024 after 20 races sailed off Dun Laoghaire on Sunday.  The light wind league was hosted by the Royal Irish Yacht Club and organised by Kenny Rumball and…
24 Fireball dinghies compeed in Cork Harbour for Munster Title honours at Monkstown Bay Sailing Club
Ewen Barry and Sandy Rimmington of the host club are the 2024 Fireball Munster Champions after a six-race regatta held at Monkstown Bay Sailing Club (MBSC) in Cork Harbour. A bumper 24-boat fleet contested the light to medium wind championships that…
The black-hulled Garavogue (No 4) pictured right brings the number of restored Dublin Bay 21 keelboats moored at Dun Laoghaire Harbour's new bandstand moorings to four. Naneen (blue), Geraldine (white) and Estelle (yellow) are also pictured
The three-restored Dublin Bay 21 vintage one-design wooden yacht fleet on their new moorings off the bandstand at Dun Laoghaire's East Pier since a fortnight ago now have a weekend addition. The trio were joined by the black-hulled beauty Garavogue…
Howth J109 Indian (Colm Buckley and Simon Knowles) on port tack clears Dun Laoghaire Harbour on the way to winning Sunday's 11-boat ISORA Viking Marine coastal race
Howth Yacht Club J109 Indian (Simon Knowles) was the winner of Sunday's 11-boat Viking Marine coastal race with ISORA JPK 1030 debutante Alan Hannon finishing second. A light wind start for the third ISORA Viking Marine Coastal Race from Dun…
Crosshaven House PY 1000 (from left to right), race organiser Alex Barry organiser, Sponsor Noel Corcoran of Crosshaven House, with Ewan O'Keefe, Colin Chapman, Sir Robin Knox Johnston, Dave Lane and Yvonne Durcan, Rear Admiral, Dinghies
On Saturday evening (April 20), the Royal Cork Yacht Club (RCYC) honoured British yachtsman Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, who arrived into Cork Harbour during his Round Ireland cruise. Knox Johnston, who famously completed the first single-handed non-stop circumnavigation of the world…
British fans are hopeful RB3 will give them the best chance of winning the Louis Vuitton 37th America's Cup in 173 years
The INEOS Britannia base opened its shutters just after 5 am on Saturday, revealing the latest AC75 to be unveiled for the Louis Vuitton 37th America's Cup. The boat, codenamed RB3 for the past two-and-a-half years, is a sight to…
23 Fireball dinghies are competing in Cork Harbour for Munster Title honours at Monkstown Bay Sailing Club
The National Yacht Club's Nicola Ferguson and Thomas Chaix are leading a record fleet of 23 Fireball dinghies gathered in Cork Harbour for the  2024 Munster Championships this weekend. Monkstown Bay Sailing Club (MBSC) is hosting the championships after a…
John O'Gorman's Sunfast 3600 Hot Cookie from the National Yacht Club will compete in Sunday's 24-mile ISORA Viking Marine coastal race off Dun Laoghaire where light winds are expected
Crews anticipate shortening Sunday's 24-mile course in ISORA's third Viking Marine coastal race due to a light wind forecast, keeping the duration to the promised four-hour time limit.  That will be in marked contrast to last Saturday's sail-busting weather that…
The spirit of Dublin Bay. Senior Skipper Tim Goodbody helming his very successful family-owned J/109 White Mischief
There’s something special about a large organisation which is so attuned to the needs of the many services it quietly provides that it can - naturally and confidently and without fuss - move into action each year in a distinctly…
The Volvo 70 Tschuss 2
The Volvo 70 Tschuss 2, skippered by Johnny Mordaunt and with a large Irish crew onboard, has broken the Round Isle Of Wight sailing record with a corrected time of six hours, 22 minutes, and 25 seconds.  Wednesday's record bid was…
The Irish Antix team were the Corinthian winners of the Royal Southern Yacht Club's Cape 31 Regatta
The Irish O'Leary team Antix secured their first win of the Cape 31 Corinthian/1 professional division, emerging as the new champions in what turned out to be a thrilling weekend of racing. The Royal Southern Yacht Club's April Regatta played…

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]