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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
Rejig Means No South Coast Match Racing Fixtures
There will be no match racing on the south coast this year following a rejig of the fixtures calendar. After two years of expansion for match racing in terms of events the theme for 2011 is consolidation. Changes to the…
Waterford Tall Ships Plans Revealed
Watertford has unveiled its plans to celebrate the arrival of the Tall Ships Race this summer. The Irish Times reports that more than half a mllion people are expected to visit the city from 30 June to 3 July to…
Sheridan Leads Dolan at Howth Yacht Club Lasers
HOWTH YACHT CLUB. LASER FROSTBITE SPRING (O'ALL) 13/02/2011 LASER STANDARD: 1, Daragh Sheridan HYC (25.00); 2, Evan Dolan NYC (27.00); 3, Daragh Kelleher SSC (32.00); LASER STANDARD APPRENTICE: 1, Conor Murphy HYC (13.00); 2, Darach Dineen HYC (14.00); 3, Brendan…
RORC Caribbean 600 Race 2011 Starts February 21
Now in its third year, the RORC Caribbean 600 has attracted competitors from all over the world and has established itself as one of the 'must do' offshore yacht races of the international racing calendar. One of the main reasons…
Two Teams Set for Nations Cup
Two teams have been selected to represent Ireland in the ISAF Nations Cup Europe II Regional Final next July 19-23 in Gdynia, Poland. As a result of the selection process arranged by the ISA the teams are Sam Hunt from…
Calling all Laser Masters Sailors
Frostbite Interclub Masters Challenge / Howth Round the Island Race - March 12th All Laser sailors are invited to join the Howth Winter Laser fleet for our End of Season race and party. The event is intended to be a…
Olympic Team in Action - Ingrid Abery Photos HERE!
Ireland's top performers from last week's Miami Olympic Classes Regatta are captured by photographer Ingrid Abery. Peter O'Leary and David Burrows in the Star keelboat are photographed in upwind pose along with fourth overall Annalise Murphy in the Laser Radial.…
Cork Clipper Brings €5.6m in Economic Return to the Local Economy
Today (Monday 07 February 2011) the sponsors of the Cork Clipper Project, Fáilte Ireland, Cork City Council & Cork County Council launched the report on the Economic and Media evaluation of Cork's participation in the Race and the hosting of…
Rowers Pass Halfway Point in Atlantic Record Attempt
The Sara G and her crew are less than 1,000 miles from Barbados in their attempt to break the world record for the fastest Alantic crossing by an ocean rowing boat. As previously reported by Afloat.ie, the six-man crew -…
Velux 5 Oceans: Windy Start to Ocean Sprint 3
The Velux 5 Oceans website has posted a video preview ahead of the third ocean sprint stage in the marathon round-the-world yacht race. http://www.velux5oceans.com/latest-news/#/latest-news/cape-horn-awaits-preview-to-ocean-sprint-3/1416 The third stage, which kicks off tomorrow, will take the four competing yachts across the Pacific…
Kearney is January Sailor of the Month
Ross Kearney of Belfast Lough is the first Afloat.ie/Irish Independent "Sailor of the Month" for 2011 after excelling all other contenders with his overall victory in the International Mirror Dinghy World Championship in Australia. As we learned in 2001 when…
Light Start to DBSC Spring Chicken Series
The first Dublin Bay Sailing Club race of the Viking Marine Spring Chicken series got away to a nice start, although a bit light for most last Sunday. This weekend's race looks like there could be a little bit more…
Annalise Murphy is Ninth in World Cup Standings
Ireland is well placed in the latest world cup standings issued by ISAF this week. After two events Peter O'Leary and David Burrows are ranked 13th in the Star and Annalise Murphy who finished fourth in Miami last week is…
Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race 2011 is Launched
The possibility of an Open 40 entry plus a new white sail division are just some of the developments for the tenth Dingle Skellig Hotel Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race. Over 50 (SCROLL DOWN FOR PHOTOS BY MICHAEL CHESTER) gathered…
J24 Europeans 2011 Preview
September 09th - 15th 2011. Hot on the heels of running the Etchells Worlds this year, Howth Yacht Club is already well advanced in its planning for the 2011 European Championship of the J/24 Class. With over 5,000 boats in…
Topper World Championships 2011 Preview
August 14th - 19th 2011. The National Yacht Club beat off stiff competition from around Europe to secure the Topper World Championships. It follows the successful 2010 Topper Worlds held at Lake Garda last August. The news was confirmed by…

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]