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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
The strong northwesterly winds that caused the cancellation of both the 2.4mR and the 29er National Championships at Dun Laoghaire this morning have also led to the scrubbing of racing in all classes of this afternoon's Dublin Bay Sailing Club…
Winners all right…Ron O’Hanley and his Privateer crew (including Ben Fusco of Kinsale) in Dingle after their Volvo D2D overall victory
With a racing machine as complex as the canting-keel Cookson 50, crew and boat management demands are raised to a fresh level. But when Ron O’Hanley of the New York Yacht Club arrived with the already hyper-successful Privateer for the…
The 29er Skiff National Championships at the National Yacht Club are curtailed due to strong winds
Strong northwesterly gusts have cancelled 29er Skiff National Championship racing at the National Yacht Club. Friday evening and Saturday's schedules were both scrubbed because of the high winds.  Racing is scheduled again for tomorrow (Sunday) on Dublin Bay. As Afloat…
Another record-sized fleet is expected to set out from Cowes on 22 July — with a significant Irish representation among them
At least 15 Irish or Irish-crewed entries have been confirmed for for the 2023 instalment of the Rolex Fastnet Race. The 50th anniversary edition of the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s flagship event will set sail from Cowes to Cherbourg via…
“A fine sailing breeze” would be as far as the sailors of the 1870s would permit their feelings to show in studying this image of hard-driven racing boats by Matthew Kendrick RHA (1805-1874, painter to the Royal Irish YC). It illustrates an increasingly familiar scene in Dublin Bay once the new harbour was completed
A week of maritime-related festivity is underway today (Saturday) as Coastival gets going in Dun Laoghaire, with the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta from next Thursday through to Sunday contributing mightily to a peak of dynamic interaction between town entertainment and…
Mark Horton of the Rivers Trust
A leading environmental charity has condemned a proposed policy that could see untreated wastewater discharged into Northern Ireland’s rivers. The Rivers Trust is raising concerns following a policy proposal in the Department for Infrastructure’s (DfI) equality impact assessment report published…
The Beautiful wooden Dayboat PaPa 2 sailed by Jack Young and Ellie Aneiros to victory at the 2023 Yachting World Dayboat Nationals in Rock, Cornwall
The 29th of June saw the conclusion of the Yachting World Dayboat Nationals in Rock, Cornwall. Jack Young and Ellie Aneiros from the Royal Cork Yacht Club were in attendance sailing their beautiful wooden Dayboat PaPa 2. This was their…
Sailors stayed ashore on day two of the 44Cup in Marstrand
While forecasts yesterday indicated that there might be a 50-50 chance of racing taking place today at the 44Cup Marstrand, in the event conditions off the popular Swedish tourist hotspot made this impossible. Principal Race Officer Maria Torrijo explained why…
Irish skipper Tom Dolan is sailing doublehanded with Kevin Bloch in Saturday's Tour de Bretagne à la Voile
Irish skipper Tom Dolan eagerly looks forward to Saturday's Tour de Bretagne à la Voile, where he believes a podium place is within reach. The four-stage, double-handed race starts on Saturday, July 1st and goes around the Brittany peninsula starting…
The Lyver Trophy Offshore Race fleet will be heading on a short leg northwest from Holyhead before turning southwest towards Wicklow. They will then follow the coast north to Dun Laoghaire, a total distance of approximately 85 miles
Saturday's 85-mile course for the Lyver Trophy Offshore Race across the Irish Sea has been confirmed. The 18 entries will race from Holyhead at 0930 am, and organisers expect the first boats to finish around 9 pm off Dun Laoghaire…
Irish sailor Conor Corson, sailing doublehanded with Elin Jones, has won the AZAB Ocean race overall in his Sunfast 3300, Asgard
Irish sailor Conor Corson sailing doublehanded with Elin Jones, has won the AZAB Ocean race overall in his Sunfast 3300, Asgard. The AZAB is a 2,400-mile ocean race starting in Falmouth and going to the port of Ponta Delgada on the Azores Island…
Strong IRC classes are sailing in next week's July VDLR Regatta 2023 on Dublin Bay
At 371 boats and still counting, next week's Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta (VDLR) 2023 is certainly living up to its pre-event billing as Ireland's largest sailing event. With visiting entries already sailing into the great granite harbour for the four-day competition…
A view from the deck of John Treanor's new J112e
John Treanor's new J112e "ValenTina" from the National Yacht Club debuted on the Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) race track last night and won her Cruisers Zero IRC division. Four boats raced in the light air Thursday night fixture –…
Donaghdee's Oisin McClelland and Dublin Bay's Cian Guilfoyle are one point off the lead on France's Aleph Racing at the 44 Cup in Marstrand, Sweden
Racing resumed in Europe for the eight high-performance owner-driver one design RC44s on Thursday, with the opening rounds of the 44Cup Marstrand and Irish crews are in the mix. Donaghdee's Oisin McClelland and Dublin Bay's Cian Guilfoyle are one point…
Tom Jeffcoate and Mark Hogan in ‘Ric-O-Shea' win race seven at the National Squib Keelboat Championships in Weymouth
Race seven of the National Squib Keelboat Championships in Weymouth was in total contrast to the previous races. The wind blew off the shore between 4 and 12 knots and shifted to sixty degrees.  Of the 65 competitors, Ireland's ‘Femme…
11th Hour Racing Team raise their trophy after arriving in Genoa to a hero’s welcome on Thursday 29 June
After racing around the world and overcoming challenge after challenge, 11th Hour Racing Team was confirmed as winners of The Ocean Race 2022-23 on Thursday morning (29 June). While the team celebrated ashore and afloat, they would need to wait…

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]