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
Darach Dinneen's Mermaid Endeavour with son Max steering and Niamh Lynchehaun crewing
Dublin Bay has been the home of the Mermaid class since 1932 when they were designed by J B Kearney. They race regularly in Dun Laoghaire, Clontarf, Rush, Skerries, Wexford, Foynes, Dungarvan and Sligo. And for the first time ever…
Portaferry RNLI inshore lifeboat
Portaferry RNLI inshore lifeboat was launched on Monday evening to assist a 6-meter fishing vessel which had suffered engine failure close to the Bar Buoy at the entrance into Strangford Lough. Belfast Coastguard requested the launch of the lifeboat at…
The ILCA Connacht Championships are to be used to award the ILCA 4 Irish Sailing Youth National Prizes 2024
In the aftermath of Storm Kathleen, the ILCA 4 Class was left without any competitive sailing at the Irish Sailing Youth Nationals held at the Royal Cork Yacht Club in early April. However, ILCA Ireland has stepped up to the…
Blessington Sailing Club and Malahide Yacht Club's Cora McNaughton and Sean Cronin (left) are one of four Irish pairings selected to compete at the 2024 International 420 Open European Championships in July
The Irish 420 Dinghy Class Association announces the pairings to represent Ireland at the 2024 Open International 420 European Championships.  Unlike some other youth boats, the 420 Worlds and Junior Europeans are closed events due to the sheer numbers of boats…
File image of Henry Street Jetty on the River Erne in Enniskillen
Waterways Ireland advises masters of vessels on users of the Erne System in Northern Ireland that the downstream section of the Henry Street Floating Jetty in Enniskillen will be closed from this Sunday 21 to next Friday 26 April. This…
We developed a new design for the Shannon One design class at our Cork sail loft. Once we were all happy with the design which we sent to top guys in the class so they could review it in real…
Atlantic Challenge ideas man Joe Kiernan and his seadog mate Pip (she’s a shiatzu) coming through Blasket Sound in the Sigma 38 Gambit
It was Conor O’Brien of Foynes who said the main purpose of cruising should be to sail to islands. So it’s appropriate that a Foynes Yacht Club cruiser-racer owner, Joe Kiernan, is suggesting that there are enough islands along the…
2023's Irish Sailor of the Year Eve McMahon of Howth Yacht Club had the best result of the Irish Olympic sailing team at the Princess Sofia Regatta in Palma earlier in April, finishing 14th overall out of 114 boats after 5th place on her final day of racing. She races again next week at French Olympic Week in Hyeres
Next week, a full Irish Sailing squad will race in all three Paris 2024 qualified disciplines at the French Olympic Week on the Cote D'Azur. The event will feature 824 sailors on 660 boats from 90 nations competing in ten…
Alinghi Red Bull Racing’s BoatOne: teamwork makes it real. The team officially presented its race yacht, BoatOne, with a christening ceremony at dockside that featured a human tower from local Castellers. The milestone marks a significant shift to the final competition phase of the campaign with the official opening of the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup a little more than four months away
Alinghi Red Bull Racing Base has officially presented its race yacht, BoatOne, in a grand ceremony that featured a human tower constructed by the traditional Castellers. The milestone marks a significant shift to the final competition phase of the campaign…
Calves Week 2024 announces Schull Harbour Hotel as the title sponsor for its August regatta in West Cork. From (left to right) Michael Murphy Schull Harbour Sailing Club (SHSC), Eric Coogan Heineken Ireland, Mark Murphy, Commodore SHSC, Jack Allen SHSC, Carmel O'Regan SHSC, Cornelious Ndlovu, Schull Harbour Hotel Operations Manager and Derval Murphy SHSC
Schull Harbour Hotel has been announced as the new title sponsor for the Calves Week 2024 Regatta in West Cork. This partnership will last for the next three years and will bring a great racing and onshore festivities experience to…
Bob Espey was the first-ever Northern Irish championship Waszp winner at Ballyholme Yacht Club
Despite the Yellow Weather warning for County Down last weekend, six Waszp dinghies did turn up at Ballyholme Yacht Club for the first ever Northern Irish championships section of the Four Nations Cup. But with little respite from the North…
The Eye Race - 16 stand-up paddle board racers from all over the island of Ireland competed in the waters of Howth Sound and Ireland's Eye, Dublin
Discover SUP hosted the second running of The Eye Race, the final event in the 2023-2024 Irish Winter SUP Race Series, on April 13th, 2024. The race, which took place in the waters of Howth Sound and Ireland's Eye, Dublin,…
Puffin - the charismatic birds have already been delighting visitors in recent weeks as they arrive back at Rathlin Island
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) anticipates that puffins will benefit from the closure last month of the industrial fishery for sand eels in the North Sea and Scottish waters. The closure of the fishery from March…
Former Team Malizia crew member Rosalin Kuiper now wears the blue of Team Holcim-PRB
Rosalin ‘Rosie’ Kuiper says Team Holcim-PRB will be on the starting line in Kiel, Germany and ready to race in The Ocean Race Europe in the summer of 2025. The Dutch sailor, who competed around the world in The Ocean…
Following the Youth National Championships at Royal Cork Yacht Club, the Irish Optimist Dinghy teams have been announced for 2024
The anticipation had been building for weeks, and as a group of 39 of the country's more experienced Optimist sailors headed for the Royal Cork Yacht Club in Crosshaven from April 4th to 7th, excited at the prospect of four…
The Mirror dinghy class is rejuvenated in Ireland for 2024
The rejuvenated Mirror dinghy class is ready to kick off 2024 in Blessington on 27-28 April, whether you have the latest Winder racing unit or the wooden beauty your granddad built in his garage. Is it the fun, the intergenerational learning,…

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]