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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
Royal Cork's Johnny Durcan competing in New Zealand this week
Royal Cork's Johnny Durcan and the National Yacht Club's Nicole Hemeryck are ready for battle at the 2016 Aon Youth Sailing World Championships in New Zealand this Friday. Both the Irish sailors will compete in the Laser Radial class which…
Enda O'Coineen had to go over the stern of Kilcullen voyager to release a jammed sheet
Ireland's first Vendee Globe competitor Enda O'Coineen climbed out over the stern of his round–the–world yacht to free a loose line. In 15th place overall from a fleet of 29, the Royal Irish Yacht Club sailor describes the latest obstacle…
Storme Delaney from Sandycove in County Dublin completed the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers on board Andrew Middleton's Beneteau First 47.7, EHO1
At least three Irish flagged boats as well as a number of international boats with Irish crew onboard have finished or are nearing the Caribbean finish of the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers having crossed from Gran Canaria up to a…
Online Entry Opens for Irish Cruiser Nationals 2017 at Royal Cork Yacht Club
Both the Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA) and the Royal Cork Yacht Club (RCYC) have just launched their respective websites for the ICRA National Championships which will take place at the Crosshaven club from Friday 9th to Sunday 11th June.…
Sovereign's Cup in Kinsale runs from 21st-24th June 2017
Kinsale Yacht Club reports five entries already received since opening entry this morning for the Sovereign's Cup entries from 21st-24th June 2017. This is the 12th Sovereign’s Cup and organisers are looking forward to welcoming over 100 boats to Kinsale next…
At the Golden Globe Race Press conference at the Paris Nautique Exhibition. Golden Globe Race skippers attending the Presentation on stage: Left to right: Loïc Lepage (60) France, Gregor McGuckin (30) Ireland, Jean-Luc van den Heede (71) France, Carl Huber (56) USA, Mark Sinclair (58) Australia, Sir Robin Knox-Johnston (UK) winner of the first Sunday Times Golden Globe Race in 1968/9, Susie Goodall (27) UK, Nérée Cornuz (27 Switzerland, Lionel Regnier (57) France, Antoine Cousot (45) France, Patrick Phelipon (63) France, Nabil Amra (41) Palestine, Istvan Kopar (63) USA, Are Wiig (57) Norway.
No sooner than Enda O'Coineen makes an Irish debut in the Vendee Globe race than another Irish short–handed sailor Gregor McGuckin (30) declares for 2018's Golden Globe Race. As previously reported by Afloat.ie, McGuckin declared his interest in the non-stop round the…
Paul Elvstrom – the lengendary Olympic died yesterday aged 88
Legendary Danish yachtsman Paul Elvstrøm has died in his sleep. The 88–year–old died at his birthplace in Hellerup surrounded by his family. Elvstrøm, considered one of the greatest sailing athletes in the history of sailing, won four consecutive Olympic gold…
Foiling Catamaran for Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games
Last month the World Sailing Council met in Barcelona, Spain, and confirmed the Nacra 17 will convert to foiling for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, the only foiling class among the 10 Olympic sailing classes. It means Irish sailors with…
Enda O'Coineen is now four weeks ino the Vendee Globe Race and reports from the Indian Ocean. “Welcome to the Indian Ocean. Wow! The first to greet us was Rich Wilson on Great American IV. We trailed him by over…
Dates Set for Royal Lymington Cup 2017
Following the success of the revival of this historic regatta in 2016, the Royal Lymington Cup on the Solent returns in June 2017 with sponsorship from the Ancasta Group. The Royal Lymington Cup will be held next year from Saturday 17…
 Thomas Ruyant on Le Souffle du Nord pour le Projet Imagine
Shortly before 0700 UTC this morning in the Vendee Globe Race, Thomas Ruyant - Le Souffle du Nord pour le Projet Imagine – informed his boat captain, Laurent Bourguès, that damage to the boat had led to an ingress of…
French skipper Kito de Pavant
French Vendee Globe skipper Kito de Pavant was enduring an anxious wait this afternoon aboard his Bastide Otio after he struck an object which destroyed his keel housing, ripped off his aft keel mountings and left the appendage supported only…
Irish 49er Duo Launch Crowdfunding Campaign For Tokyo 2020 Ambitions
#49er - More than €5,000 is the cost of competition for Ryan Seaton and Seafra Guilfoyle as they prep for their first event as a duo in Mallorca this coming spring. The new combination have joined with PledgeSports to crowdfund…
Sébastien Josse contacted his shore team to inform them that he had suffered major damage to the port foil on Edmond de Rothschild
At 0930 UTC this morning (Monday), while he was sailing 600 miles west of the longitude of Cape Leeuwin, Sébastien Josse contacted his shore team in the Vendee Globe Race to inform them that he had suffered major damage to…
Hermine O’Keefe (L) and Louise McKenna (R) respond to receiving their Frostbite Mugs.
While the forecast on XCWeather had looked good from the late part of Friday afternoon through to Sunday morning, the reality on the water was that it didn’t deliver. Instead of a healthy 14 – 19 knots of South-Easterly, we…
Annalise at speed in Bermuda
Annalise Murphy picked up another well deserved reward at the weekend when she shared the REHAB Sportsperson of the Year Award at the weekend. The Dun Laoghaire Olympic Silver medalist couldn't be there in person to pick her award at…

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]