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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
Difficult Transatlantic race - Tom Dolan (right) was part of a three-strong international crew, skippered by top Figaro racer Gildas Mahé (centre). The team also included young Spanish racer Pep Costa
Irish skipper Tom Dolan is gearing up for his next challenge, the Solo Maître CoQ race, after finishing fourth in the new 3,430 miles Niji40 Class40 race between Belle-Ile-en-Mer, France and Marie-Galante Gaudeloupe. The 21st edition of the Solo Maître…
Donaghadee RNLI Lifeboat launched to assist a trawler in difficulty and unsure of its location
In the early hours of Thursday 25 April, the volunteer RNLI lifeboat crew from Donaghadee lifeboat station received a call from HM Coastguard to launch a rescue mission. A 40ft fishing trawler with one person onboard had contacted the Coastguard…
The first Water Wag race of the AIB/DBSC 2024 season gets underway
The first Water Wag race of the AIB/DBSC 2024 season was held in a chilly six-eight knot steady south-easterly breeze in Dun Laoghaire harbour. Twenty-two boats participated. Race Officer Tadgh Donnelly, aboard the Royal Irish Yacht Club committee boat 'Spirit…
Howth and Skerries duo Robert Dickson and Sean Waddilove (sailing IRL 99) are lying 13th overall after seven races sailed at French Olympic Week at Hyères
There were testing conditions on the third day of French Olympic Week at Hyères on the Cote D'Azur, France but Irish Sailor of the Year Eve McMahon of Howth Yacht Club managed to stay in the top ten, now lying eighth overall after…
Winners of the RYA Northern Ireland Annual Awards for 2023
The Northern Ireland sailing community enjoyed a celebratory evening at Riddel Hall in Belfast last Friday (19 April) as people came together for the RYA Northern Ireland Annual Awards. The evening was “the perfect opportunity to recognise the achievements of…
Aerial view of the IMOCA In-Port Race in Genoa on 1 July 2023, with the Italian Navy tall ship Amerigo Vespucio in the foreground
The Italian city of Genoa and The Ocean Race will extend their close relationship with The Ocean Race Europe bringing a fleet of foiling IMOCA race boats to the Mediterranean port in the late summer of 2025. As host of…
The NMD54 Teasing Machine competes in the Myth of Malham Race this early May Bank Holiday Weekend
This early May Bank Holiday weekend is the date for one of the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s most celebrated races. An impressive RORC fleet will gather off Cowes, IOW for the Myth of Malham Race with multiple starts from the…
Harland & Wolff’s CEO, Mr. Wood, said a replacement vessel for the new operator, Scilly Ferries, had become unviable due to conflict in the Middle East. AFLOAT adds that the above fast ferry is the original proposed craft; however, an alternative, Aquabus Jet 1, has been chartered and renamed Atlantic Wolff. The craft departed Spain, and today (24 April), it is off Portugal before it completes a delivery voyage to Portsmouth in the UK.
Scilly Ferries, a division of Harland & Wolff Group, is a new ferry operator that was due to start running in May between the Isles of Scilly and Penzance, Cornwall, but has been delayed. The shipbuilder group announced on Friday that…
The new AC75 designs reveal that different solutions have been found for very similar questions
As the sailing world eagerly awaits the Louis Vuitton 37th America's Cup, the intensity of the competition is only increasing. With four teams revealing their newly-designed AC75s, it's clear that each team has found unique solutions to the same questions,…
Victoria Dews, the owner of Sigma 33 Elandra based in Belfast Lough
Victoria Dews, the owner of Sigma 33 Elandra based in Belfast Lough, possesses many of the characteristics associated with the name Elandra, such as a strong personality, energy, charisma, and focus. She is a great advocate of Women on Water,…
Howth's Eve McMahon is now in fifth overall after her three opening races at French Olympic Week at Hyères
Howth Yacht Club boats have moved into the top ten of their respective events on the second day of French Olympic Week at Hyères on the Cote D'Azur, France, one of the last big regattas before the Olympic Games itself.…
Royal Cork Yacht Club Admiral Annamarie Feganand Deputy Simon Coveney TD, pictured with Ciara Murphy (6) Laura Sullivan (8), and Fiadh Murphy (4) at the launch of the club's Volvo Cork Week Regatta 2024.  The world-renowned regatta returns to Crosshaven from 15th-19th July 2024.  A week of world-class racing is expected and a packed schedule of onshore events including a family fun day and the Volvo Cork Week Ladies Day lunch in aid of the Crosshaven RNLI
The picturesque village of Crosshaven in Cork Harbour is gearing up once again for one of the most anticipated events on the sailing calendar - Volvo Cork Week. This biennial regatta promises an amazing week of competition, camaraderie, events, and…
Fireballs arrive at a mark at the Monkstown Bay Sailing Club hosted Munster Championships in Cork Harbour
The 2024 Fireball Munster Championships were held on April 20th/21st at Monkstown Bay Sailing Club (MBSC) in stunning weather conditions writes the club's Chris Bateman It had seemed like a long time coming, but alas, the wait was finally over,…
The 32-metre high-performance superyacht Sorceress
The 32-metre high-performance superyacht Sorceress berthed in Dun Laoghaire on Monday, April 22nd, following a voyage to Ireland from Spain.  The Marshall Island flagged yacht was the first of a new series of cruisers launched by Southern Wind in May 2017. …
An Admiral's Cup race start. For the 2025 event teams of two boats may enter representing a club or country. There will be no limitation on professional crew or crew nationality. There will be two classes with teams having one boat in each class
The Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) has published the 2025 Admiral’s Cup Notice of Race, setting out the conditions under which the prestigious regatta will be run. Expressions of interest have been received from 14 different countries (including Ireland), with…
Transat CIC route
The Transat CIC is set to bring solo ocean racing’s biggest, most modern IMOCA and Class40 fleet to the very heart of New York City. The city of New York is inextricably linked to the long history of solo ocean…

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]