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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
Six brand new wing foilers from the Royal St George got their first taste of this extraordinary and fast-growing sport
To fly over water, almost silently is an amazing feeling. That’s according to Brendan Foley, Wing Foiling Class Captain at the Royal St George Yacht Club. Just this weekend six brand new wing foilers from the Royal St George got…
The J122 Aurelia with red kite (Chris Power Smith) and Tom Shanahan's J109 Ruth streak away from the Dun Laoghaire start line bound for North Kish in the second Viking Marine ISORA coastal race of 2024
Following Saturday's dead heat for first place in ISORA's season coastal race opener, 14 boats have entered next Sunday's four-hour race.  Among the contestants are last week's Dun Laoghaire winners, the J122 Aurelia (Chris Power Smith) from the Royal St.…
Racing at the Drheam Cup in 2022
More than 50 entries have been confirmed so far for the fifth edition of the Drheam Cup, which will take place from 11-21 July 2024 between Cherbourg-en Cotentin and La Trinité-sur-Mer in north-western France. As previously reported on Afloat.ie, 11…
Ken Corry, Commodore of the Los Angeles YC (founded 1901). He learned his sailing in the Royal Cork at Crosshaven but left Ireland (as did many others) in 1985 and is now so into America’s West Coast sailing scene that he owns a classic Cal 40
The 1980s tend to get a bad press as a time when young people left the country in droves, searching for jobs that matched their potential and training. Those of us who stayed at home to battle on, but now…
Rathlin Island ferry service - Charles Stewart, Director at Dunaverty Ltd, Dawn Hynes, Managing Director at Dunaverty Ltd and Robert Lynn, Business Manager at Danske
Dunaverty Ltd, the operators of the ferry service to Rathlin Island off the coast of County Antrim, have successfully completed their first year in business. The company has announced that it has increased its team to 18 and transported thousands…
A live Q&A session with Ireland's Paris Olympic ILCA Representatives Finn Lynch and Eve McMahon
The Irish Laser Class Association (ILCA) has announced that its annual general meeting (AGM) will be held virtually on April 17th at 6:30 pm. The meeting will be followed by a live Q&A session with the ILCA representatives who will…
The UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Oceans, Peter Thomson handed Nature's Baton to the Greek Prime Minister's Special Envoy for Oceans, Dr Dionysia-Theodora Avgerinopoulou on Monday 15 April ahead of the Our Ocean Conference
The Ocean Race brought the spirit of ocean racing to the Our Ocean Conference 2024 starting on Tuesday (16 April) at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center in Athens, Greece. On Monday (15 April), Ericsson 1 — one of the…
The Swedish Challenge Women's and Youth America's Cup AC40 is craned into Belfast Lough for training purposes
If you were wondering why an AC40 was sailing in Belfast Lough in the last few days, here is the answer. About a week ago, the AC40 arrived in Belfast for the Swedish Women's and Youth America's Cup teams for…
Your only man. The late Brendan Cassidy of Howth officiating at Irish Sea Folkboat Week 1978
When the stories attached to the former Cassidy four-storey pub on Howth waterfront appeared on Afloat.ie last week, telling of how it might become a boutique hotel owned by a syndicate including MMI Word Champion Conor McGregor, eagle-eyed peninsula dwellers…
Viking axes and Bronze Age spearheads are among the items found, along with vessel remains, after a hydrographic survey of Lough Corrib in which Underwater Archaeologist Karl Brady was involved
Although the beautiful Lough Corrib is one of the most important features of County Galway and has played a key role in the life and transport in the West since time immemorial, it is not connected to Ireland's main inland…
Royal Cork Yacht Club Admiral Annamarie Murphy's Grand Soleil 40 Nieulargo leads the Axiom Private Clients Spring Series 2024 at Kinsale Yacht Club
Royal Cork Yacht Club Lady  Admiral Annamarie Murphy leads the Axiom Private Clients Spring Series 2024 at Kinsale Yacht Club after three wins from three races sailed. In provisional results subject to protest, the Murphy family Grand Soleil 40 Nieulargo from Crosshaven heads…
Christian Schwoerer La Pericolosa's crew, including Ireland's Will Byrne (third from left), celebrate victory in the opening round of the 2024 UK Cape 31 Class Race Circuit at the Royal Southern Yacht Club
As part of Christian Schwoerer La Pericolosa's crew, the National Yacht Club's Will Byrne has won the blustery opening event of the 2024 UK Cape 31 Class Race Circuit at the Royal Southern Yacht Club. It was the first event in the German…
Joseph Griffiths
Baltimore Sailing Club’s Joseph Griffiths will be joining the two Northern Ireland youth sailors selected for the Griffin Project 2024. As previously reported on Afloat.ie, the Griffin Project is a Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) initiatve which gives young sailors…
Atlantic Youth Trust logo
The Atlantic Youth Trust is recruiting for an executive administrator to manage and optimise its day-to-day management and fundraising efforts. The trust is a North–South youth development and cultural integration charity established in 2013 to connect youth with the ocean…
Three of the restored Dublin Bay 21 vintage one-design wooden yacht fleet, Naneen (blue), Geraldine (white) and Estelle (yellow), on their new moorings off the bandstand at Dun Laoghaire Harbour's East Pier
The restored Dublin Bay 21 vintage one-design wooden yacht fleet is sitting pretty this season on new moorings off the bandstand at Dun Laoghaire's East Pier. The newly laid dedicated trot of seven moorings will give the Edwardian fleet a…
The annual lift-in of boats at the National Yacht Club (green crane in the foreground) and Royal St. George (red crane in the background) took place in perfect weather conditions on Saturday, April 13th ahead of the 2024 Dublin Bay Sailing Club summer season
Saturday’s (April 13th) Lift-in of yachts and boats at Dun Laoghaire Harbour in gusty westerly winds and sunny conditions marked the opening of the 2024 summer sailing season on the capital's waters of Dublin Bay.  In the harbour, the National Yacht Club and neighbouring Royal…

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]