Menu

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
Round Ireland Yacht Race michael_boyd_RORC
Michael Boyd, the Commodore of the Royal Ocean Racing Club and current holder of the Commodore’s Cup, will return to compete in the 2016 Volvo Round Ireland race, marking the 20th anniversary of his win, with many of the same…
#TallShips - Sail Training Ireland will host its 2016 Annual Awards and season launch at Dublin's Mansion House on Saturday 23 January, it has been announced. Lord Mayor of Dublin Críona Ní Dhálaigh will join many of the young people…
World Sailing has published its report into discrimination at the 2015 Youth World Sailing Championship in Langkawi, Malaysia.The international sailing authority says it deeply regrets that two sailors from the Israel Yachting Association (IYA) were unable to compete at the 2015…
Bob Oatley

Bob Oatley

13th January 2016 Sydney to Hobart
Australian skipper Robert Ian "Bob" Oatley has passed away. Best known for owning the eight-time Sydney-Hobart-winning yacht Wild Oats XI, Oatley passed away on 10 January 2016 aged 87. He was married with three children. The Australian pioneered winemaking in the Hunter…
The second series of the DMYC Frostbites started with a bright and gusty afternoon in Dun Laoghaire Harbour. A competitive fleet of six RS’s hit the water for two closely fought races in tricky conditions.In race one, Sean and Heather…
Local Clipper Race bursary winner Conor Shortland from Derry’s Bogside is busy packing his bags ahead of his departure to Brisbane in Australia this week to join the crew of the Derry~Londonderry~Doire yacht for Leg 5 of the Clipper 2015-16…
Just as Dublin Bay Sailing Club announce a new initiative to combine sportsboats in a new class in April UK Sports Boats have united to form a new class association. After the success of earlier mixed Sports Boat events, like…
The International Sailing Federation now World Sailing has appointed Andy Hunt, former CEO of the British Olympic Association and a non-executive Director of the London 2012 Olympic & Paralympic Games as its new Chief Executive Officer. It is the second…
Model Yacht Racers finally got a nice day yesterday, Sunday 10th January with a gentle breeze and a fresh but not too cold day in Howth YC for our first racing day of 2016 writes Gilbert Louis.We had all the…
Circumnavigate round Ireland on a cruising yacht and you will experience an abundance of spectacular coastal scenery, uninhabited islands, ancient settlements, incredible sea birds and endless marine mammal wildlife. Cruising Ireland’s coastline will have you exploring sheltered harbours, sailing past…
Irish_sailor_of_year
#sailoroftheyear – The Afloat.ie Irish Sailor of the Year 2015 award will be announced at the Sailing Awards celebration in Dublin on the afternoon of Thursday, February 4th at a ceremony which will also see each Sailor of the Month…
The Irish 420 class will stage its  2016 Munster Championships and open coaching session at Schull Sailing Centre during the February Mid-Term break. Coaching will take place from Saturday 13th (registration only) to Tuesday16th February with Ross Killian - ISA…
#WorldSailing - World Sailing has announced plans to take the sport to a mass audience in 2016 at the London Boat Show. Live broadcasts from three Sailing World Cup events will be bolstered by a new television series produced in…
With the recent series of storms model yacht racers had to cancel a number of events but a few managed to get on the water. We had a friendly outing in Gortin lake in November and another one on Lough…
The massive French trimaran IDEC SPORT has hit an unidentified floating object during the night, 130 miles off the southwest coast of Ireland. The port rudder is broken. However they are still expected to reach the pontoon in Brest at…
SMA_Crookhaven
An 60–foot round the world French racing yacht is berthed in Crookhaven Bay in County Cork this morning having been abandoned mid–Atlantic three weeks ago and brought to the Irish harbour by a recovery team that included Kinsale's Marcus Hutchinson.…

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]