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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
ISORA Race Officers Barry MacNeaney and Larry Power are dwarfed in their Committee Boat RIB at the light air start of the first race of the ISORA Viking Marine Coastal Series on Dublin Bay. The fleet was shy of the line due to a strong ebb tide that threatened to push the fleet over before the start gun
Although ISORA's YB race tracker reports Royal Irish's Paul O'Higgins made the best of a tricky course along the Dublin and Wicklow coast in his JPK10.80 Rockabill VI in the first race of the Viking Marine ISORA Coastal Series on Saturday,…
Portrush RNLI’s new inshore lifeboat The Ken Blair and crew
Portrush RNLI hosted a special ceremony on Saturday (15 April) at the harbour when their new D class lifeboat was officially named The Ken Blair by Sylvia Blair. The lifeboat, funded by Sylvia in memory of her late husband, arrived…
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 15th ahead of the 2023 Dublin Bay Sailing Club summer season
Saturday’s (April 15th) Lift-in of yachts and boats at Dun Laoghaire Harbour in perfect calm and sunny conditions marked the opening of the 2023 summer sailing season on Dublin Bay.  In the harbour, the National Yacht Club and neighbouring Royal St. George YC lifted in approximately…
Launching Toppers on day three of the Investwise Youth Sailing Nationals in Howth Yacht Club
With several local weather systems working themselves into lathers of various combinations, it seems that Howth in April for the four-day Investwise Youth Sailing Nationals can either provide sunshine but little wind, or a rising sou'easter but with eventually thickening grey…
The difference between having a great start or getting stuffed can be very narrow indeed, but in this instance Tom Dolan has got himself on the right side of the bacon slicer in the hyper-keen Figaro 3 class
The best news for Ireland thus far in this developing sailing season of 2023 is that, at last weekend’s 400-boat four-day Spi Ouest Easter Regatta at La Trinite in Southern Brittany, Meath’s own Tom Dolan won the hyper-keen Figaro 3…
The Toppers put out a fleet of 40 at Howth Yacht Club for the Youth National Championships
Some placings waxed and waned, occasionally quite spectacularly, in Day 2's racing in the Investwise Youth Sailing Nationals at Howth, as wind and weather struggled to stabilise themselves after the theatrically unsettled conditions experienced earlier in the week. Nevertheless, in…
Racing at the Sovereign's Cup in Kinsale Co.Cork
With over 80 entries already registered, the Simply Blue Group-sponsored Sovereign’s Cup has less than 20 places left at Kinsale to reach its official cap. The biennial regatta takes place 21st to 24th June in Kinsale Yacht Club and this year,…
Yachts round the Fastnet Rock during Calves Week Regatta. The 2023 edition of the West Cork Regatta runs from August 8th-11th
With over 40 confirmed entries already, Calves Week Regatta in Schull Harbour, West Cork, from August 8th-11th, is expected to reach its 70-boat cut-off by early summer. The top end of the entries looks particularly competitive, with seven J Boat models…
Robert Rendell's Grand Soleil 44 Samatom is entered in Saturday's first race of the ISORA's Viking Marine Coastal Series off Dun Laoghaire
The first of six races in the Viking Marine ISORA Coastal Series has a 13-boat entry for Saturday morning's start for a Dun Laoghaire – Dun Laoghaire race that leaves the Moulditch Buoy off Greystones Harbour in County Wicklow to…
World Sailing President Quanhai Li (left) meets IOC President Thomas Bach
World Sailing has issued a statement welcoming the new guidance from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board, recommending the Conditions of Participation for individual athletes and support personnel with a Russian or Belarusian passport in international sports competitions organised…
East Antrim BC's Tom Coulter who was th winner of last weekend's ILCA 6 Championships at Baltimore Sailing Club logged a 1,2 on the opening day of the Youth Sailing Nationals at Howth Yacht Club
The first day of racing in the big-fleet Investwise Youth Sailing Nationals at Howth Yacht Club saw the Race Team get in two good races in the sweet spot between the morning's near gale that was the last of Storm…
File image of a fuel pump
Heading into the new season, recreational boaters in Great Britain are reminded of their responsibility to ensure they make the correct declaration when purchasing red diesel. The RYA announced in March 2021 that recreational boaters would retain the right to…
The UK version of the keelboat league in the RS21 keelboat gets another start underway. The Irish Sailing League will also be held in the new one design
Attention all clubs, the Irish Sailing League entry deadline is looming! Entries are due to close this week, and with a near-full entry list, now is the time to secure entry for your club! Entries must be made on behalf…
The late Leonard
Afloat.ie regrets to record the death in his 89th year of Len "Skipper" Sheil of the National Yacht Club, Dun Laoghaire, who was the epitome of the quiet yet effectively enthusiastic Dublin Bay sailor with a strong and active interest…
The Optimists will have the biggest fleet at the four-day Investwise Youth Nationals 2023 which get underway at Howth today
Storm Antoni has been making quite a lot of noise and bother all over Ireland in recent days, but now he has moved east just in time for the Investwise Youth Sailing Nationals 2023 to move in on Howth from…
The start of the 2021 Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race. The D2D  is an Irish showcase race of the 2023 series and one of 15 testing races that make up RORC's offshore championship
Since the 1940s, the Royal Ocean Racing Club has organised a season of multiple races and organised the first RORC Season’s Points Championship in 2000 using the IRC Rating System. The series quickly became, and still is, the largest racing…

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]