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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
O'Shea Urges Good Turnout for SCORA
#OFFSHORE – Commodore Vinnie O'Shea is urging offshore sailors to turn out in good numbers when the 2012 South Coast Offshore Racing (SCORA) programme returns to its more traditional format this season writes Claire Bateman. The Jim Donegan Offshore Championship…
Calypso Wins it but Legally Blonde Holds Overall Lead
#SPRING CHICKEN – Inspite of winning last Sunday's race Calypso, a Beneteau Oceanis 361 from the Royal St. George Yacht Club, lies 21st overall in the 43-boat DBSC Spring Chicken Series fleet, some 30–points behind overall leader Legally Blonde. Second…
Irish Crews Set Sail in Carribbean 600
#CARIBBEAN 600 – Irish crews are reveling in the heavy going at the start of today's RORC 600 race today with four Irish crew on the largest yacht in the 39-boat fleet, the massive ketch Hetairos. There was drama right…
Rumball and Moran Romp Home in Dun Laoghaire
#FIREBALL – Bright sunshine greeted the Fireball Frostbite fleet in Dun Laoghaire yesterday and combined with 8-12 knots of breeze, it allowed the fleet to race outside the harbour for the first time this year. Thirteen boats took to the…
Fireballers Heading for National Honours in Howth
#FIREBALL – Top Irish dinghy sailing class, the Fireballs have announced the 2012 Irish Fireball Nationals will be hosted by Howth Yacht Club over the last Friday and Saturday of June and the first Sunday of July – 29th, 30th…
'The Rules of Racing' Lecture in Castlebar This Thursday
#RACING - Mayo Sailing Club's winter series of lectures continues this Thursday 23 February with a talk by Ed Alcock on 'The Rules of Racing'. Alcock is racing manager of the Irish Sailing Association (ISA), and his lecture will outline…
Injured Crew Evacuated from Yacht in Clipper Round the World Race
#CLIPPER– Gold Coast Australia, one of the ten 68-foot yachts competing in the Clipper 11-12 Round the World Yacht Race, has diverted to Taiwan to evacuate a crew member who broke his leg in the gruelling conditions the amateur teams…
George Kenefick is Sailor of the Year
#SAILOR OF THE YEAR – George Kenefick of Cork is the new Afloat.ie/Irish Independent "Sailor of the Year" after an exceptionally diverse and successful season in which the 23-year-old Crosshaven skipper logged major successes at a wide variety of venues…
Tall Ships Training Opportunities for Young People Across Ireland
#TALL SHIPS - The organisers of the Tall Ships Races visit to Dublin are inviting young people to get involved by becoming 'trainees' aboard the fleet as they race from Spain to Ireland this summer. The 18 ships (as of…
 NI Pair Win Wayfarer American Champs
#WAYFARER – Wayfarer dinghies are a well-known class in North America, with an established racing circuit and a comprehensive calendar of meets and cruises. The 2013 Wayfarer Worlds will be sailed in Canada. The class has received a welcome boost…
White Sails Fleet to Hold Pre-Season Meet
#WHITE SAILS – Dublin Bay's White Sails fleet meets at the Royal Irish Yacht Club on March 6th to discuss new progressive ECHO and the 2012 racing schedule. The meeting will also include details of training days for the class,…
'Podium Athletes' Face Funding Cuts in 2013
#OLYMPICS - Yesterday Ireland's Olympic hopefuls celebrated recognition of their success in the 2012 round of funding. But cuts to the budget of the Irish Sports Council (ISC) have prompted a "major" review of high performance programmes from 2013 onwards,…
Olympic Sailors Become 'Podium Athletes'
#OLYMPIC – Two out of three of Ireland's Olympic sailing teams cashed in on their performances at yesterday's pre-Olympic spend by the Irish Sports Council. Sailing picked up €120k to assist in preparations  for Weymouth this July. Both Annalise Murphy…
Mustang 30 Leads in Sailing's Spring Chicken Series (Results here)
#DBSC – Peridot leads the overall standings in the Viking Marine sponsored Spring Chicken Series on Dublin Bay. The Mustang 30 leads Lula Belle (Beneteau 36.7) by a single point as the series approaches the half way point this Sunday.…
Jameson Producer Signs On as Volvo Ocean Race Fest Sponsor
#VOLVO OCEAN RACE - The producer of Jameson whiskey has been announced as the spirit and wine sponsor of the Volvo Ocean Race Festival in Galway this summer. The Galway Independent repors that Irish Distillers Pernod Ricard will be represented…
Blue Skies But Cold Water for Dun Laoghaire Fireballs
#FIREBALL – Blue skies and a building breeze greeted the fifteen-strong Fireball fleet who took to the waters of Dun Laoghaire harbour for the DMYC's Frostbites yesterday, Sunday 12th February writes Cormac Bradley. Earlier, the morning had dawned grey and…

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]