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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
Denis Bergin's  Dublin Bay Dragon crew head upwind off the Old Head of Kinsale. Kinsale Yacht Club will host the 2024 Dragon Gold Cup this September
The anticipation for the 2024 Dragon Gold Cup at Kinsale Yacht Club is building as some of the biggest names in Dragon sailing have already confirmed their participation in the upcoming event, sponsored by Astra Construction Services Ltd. With almost…
Sean Lemass's First 40 Prima Forte of the Royal Irish Yacht Club was the winner of Dublin Bay Sailing Club's fifth AIB-sponsored Thursday evening race of the 2024 season
Sean Lemass's First 40 Prima Forte was the winner of Dublin Bay Sailing Club's fifth AIB-sponsored Thursday evening race of the 2024 season as Royal Irish Yacht Club boats took the Cruisers Zero IRC podium. The Lemass boat took the victory in a…
New York Yacht Club's Maggie Shea and Stephanie Roble (above, left to right) who will compete in the 49erFX at the  Paris 2024 Olympics
The New York Yacht Club has added another facet to its diverse support of high-performance sailing by unveiling the Club’s Performance Sailing Fund, which has announced its first six grants. “We are so proud of the six Club members who…
New overall leader - Hap Fauth's Bella Mente competing at the IMA Maxi European Championships in Capri, Italy
Starting an hour early, two coastal courses, including the popular lap of Capri, were completed on the third and penultimate day of the IMA Maxi European Championship. The 20 maxi yachts faced a sub-10 knot southwesterly. At Wednesday’s conclusion, the…
The 2024 J24 Western Championships underway at Foynes on the Shannon Estuary
Irish J24 competitors gathered at Foynes Yacht Club this past weekend for the Western Championships on the Shannon Estuary. Saturday's races saw challenging conditions, with four races completed in 10 to 12 knots of breeze. Anticipating calm conditions on Sunday,…
Royal Irish Yacht Club (RIYC member) Guy O'Leary is on day 23 of his MileADayinMay2024 in aid of Cancer Research
Royal Irish Yacht Club (RIYC member) Guy O'Leary is on day 23 of his Mile A Day in May 2024 swim supporting the Trinity College/St.James Hospital Cancer Institute- Ireland's first centre of excellence for Cancer Research. This is the fifth…
A female Fireball dinghy duo sailing at Dun Laoghaire
This weekend's Women at the Helm Regatta 2024, hosted by the National Yacht Club and supported by Sia Partners and Irish Sailing, begins on Friday, May 24th, with a motivational panel featuring Olympic sailing silver medallist Annalise Murphy, solo offshore…
Dubin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) Water Wag racing is cancelled at Dun Laoghaire Harbour
Dubin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) Water Wag racing tonight (May 22) is cancelled due to gusty north-to-northwest winds reaching over 26 knots inside Dun Laoghaire Harbour.
May the power be with you. The Burke syndicate with the First 40 Prima Forte are seen here competing successfully in last year’s ICRA Nationals at Howth, and they return to the scene there on Friday for the three day Porsche-sponsored Wave Regatta
In electricity-generating circles, wave power may be seen as a potential though often challenging way of generating energy. But in Howth, energy and Wave power seem to have got together to have everything in mutually beneficial co-ordination for the biennial…
Eight Cape 31s compete against the backdrop of the stunning Island of Porquerolles in the Côte d'Azur
Eight Cape 31s raced on the Côte d'Azur last week. The four days of racing in Porquerolles mixed windward-leeward racing with coastal racing — a welcome challenge from the usual windward-leeward format. The teams had quite light, tricky conditions to contend…
Volvo Cork Week will host a round of the RS21 UK & Ireland Cup in 2024 for the first time
Royal Cork Yacht Club (RCYC) has partnered with the Irish RS agent, the Irish National Sailing School (INSS) and RS Sailing to provide a special opportunity for those challenged by time or crew availability or find themselves otherwise unable to…
Having served with distinction in the fishing industry, this 39 ft ketch 'The Richard' changed hands several times in the 1960s and 1980s. During that time, she cruised extensively in southern Europe and on the North Atlantic coast of Africa before heading trans-Atlantic to cruise the Caribbean. Now, largely forgotten and overshadowed by the stories of more illustrious locally built boats, this Cinderella of our maritime heritage deserves to have her story told, Baltimore Wooden Boat Festival organisers say
The Baltimore Wooden Boat Festival in West Cork will be held this weekend, starting on Friday and continuing until Sunday. “This area has a long history of engagement with trans-Atlantic sailing ships, with Eastern-bound ships picking up a Pilot off…
The inshore lifeboat Douglas Euan & Kay Richards makes way to the last reported position of the grounded vessel on Upper Lough Erne on Saturday 18 May
Carrybridge RNLI’s volunteers were called by Belfast Coastguard on Saturday afternoon (18 May) to assess a 6m vessel with one person on board which had run aground some two miles upstream from the lifeboat station on Upper Lough Erne in…
The new fleet of 12 Melges 15 dinghies arrives in Howth ready for their first race on Thursday evening
Christmas presents were opened early at Howth Yacht Club when the much-anticipated container of 12 new Melges 15 dinghies arrived on Tuesday, just days ahead of Howth Yacht Club's biennial Wave Regatta at the north Dublin port. This new fleet…
Dead fish in the Four Mile Burn, a tributary of the Six Mile Water in Co Antrim
More than 1,000 brown trout have been lost in a major fish kill on a Co Antrim river, as BBC News reports. On Friday (17 May), Northern Ireland’s Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) confirmed the incident resulting…
The Royal Cork Yacht Club 'Team Wildcard' J70 crew comprises Harry Twomey, Harry Durcan, Micheal O'Suilleabhain, Sally O'Flynn and William Twomey
The J/70 European Championships kicks off today with 'Team Wildcard' as the only Irish entry for this year's highly competitive event in Italy. With over 70 J/70s from 18 nations, the event in Argentario is going to make for five…

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]