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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

'Malahide Afloat' feature at local Festival

18th July 2011
'Malahide Afloat' feature at local Festival

There will be an added nautical flavour to this year’s Malahide Festival with the introduction of a new feature entitled ‘Malahide Afloat’, devised by Malahide Yacht Club and organised on Saturday 23rd July in conjunction with Malahide Marina and Malahide Sea Scouts - as the organisations most closely associated with the town’s most natural resource – and it includes a €5 overnight berth in the marina for any visiting boat on the Saturday night.

In what is a loose-knit collaboration, the three groups are hosting activities which amply demonstrate Malahide’s marine ties and so encourage even greater usage of the town’s marine-based facilities and its renowned seaside setting.

Malahide Yacht Club is hosting its annual ‘Wicklow Vase’ Race when dinghies from the Broadmeadows section of the club race against the keelboats out at sea and then meet up in the St.James’s Terrace clubhouse for the prize-giving (around 5.30pm). Boats will gather in the Lower Estuary from 1.30pm and the race will start at 3.00pm. The clubhouse will be open to visitors during the afternoon – new members are welcome - and the club will be ‘dressed overall’ with flags and bunting for the occasion.

 

Over at the Marina, one of Malahide’s major landmarks, visitors will be welcomed on to a section of the pontoons to gain a close-up view of yachts and motor-cruisers and experience the ‘maritime feeling’ at water-level. For safety reasons, numbers on the marina pontoons at any one time will be limited but access will be free and marina staff will be on hand to answer questions about boat ownership etc.

 

Visiting boats will be offered a special Festival rate of €5 to berth in the Marina on the Saturday night, on condition they register with the Marina Office on arrival, quoting ‘Malahide Afloat’.

 

Malahide Sea Scouts - one of the largest Scout groups in the country - have planned a day of action afloat. There will be skiff rowing races, canoe races and canoe polo, all taking place in the Lower Estuary. The Scout Den at the bottom of St.James’s Terrace will also be hosting an open day for prospective new scouts and their families to check out all the facilities and equipment on offer at Malahide Sea Scouts. It will provide an insight into what the Sea Scout movement is all about.

 

Further details from: Graham Smith – Malahide Yacht Club – 086-2580510

 

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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.

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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]

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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.

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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.

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