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

Displaying items by tag: White Sails

Dermot Skehan's MG34 Toughnut of the host club leads the White Sails fleet at the Monday.com ICRA National Championships at Howth Yacht Club.

After no racing on the first day of the Championships, clouds cleared to allow a perfect sea breeze to develop, with four races completed on all three-course areas on Saturday.

Windsor Lauden in the vintage Shamrock, Demelza, also of Howth, is lying second after four races sailed. Third in the seven-boat fleet is the North Dublin Club's Splashdance (John Beckett Andy George).

Racing continues on Sunday.

Published in ICRA
Tagged under

David Riome’s Valfeya won Saturday’s third race of the McCarthy Insurance October/November White Sails League at Kinsale Yacht Club in Fleet 1, both IRC and ECHO from John Stallard’s Siboney.

Overall, Valfreya is on six points in IRC, one ahead of Siboney on seven. Michael Carroll’s Chancer is third on nine. 

In ECHO handicap, the same trio tops the league - Valfreya on 5 points, Siboney 8 and Chancer 12.

Fleet 2 IRC leader is Patrick Beckett’s Miss Charlie on 5 points from Sallybelle (Albert O’Neill) 6, with Dominic Falvey’s Swift on 10.

In ECHO, Sallybelle (6 points) leads from Swift and Miss Charlie who are both on 10.

Published in Kinsale

The Royal Cork Yacht Club has announced that this year’s O’Leary Insurances Winter League will be run as an all-in White Sail league.

The club says it initiated the trial event for 2021 to encourage as many keelboats as possible out for the Cork Harbour league, where all boats will be racing against each other for the Archie O’Leary Trophy.

Clem & Wendy McElligott will be back in the OOD boat for the league which kicks off this Sunday 7 November. First Gun will be 12.25pm with one all-in race per day.

The Notice of Race, with links to the entry form and race declaration, is available from the RCYC website HERE.

Published in Royal Cork YC

In the IRC Non-spin 1 division of Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta today, the Elan 333s are having a fine old time of it, with the overall placings now putting Colm Bermingham’s Bite the Bullet from Howth first, while Paul Tully’s White Lotus (DM) is third, but in between is Terry Fair from Balyholme YC with his Sigma 33 Cariad.

IRC Non-Spinnaker 2

In the IRC Non Spin 2 class, Paul Conway’s stylish veteran Contessa 32 Cevantes revelled in it today to log more wins in every race, next best was the UFO 31 Menapia (James & Sue McSweeney), whole the Holland-designed Super Seal Gung-Ho (Grainnne & Sean O’Shea) was third.

Percy White sail 2020The Elan 431 Percy (John Roberts and Julie Jefferson) from Whitehaven in the UK

Act Two 1966Michael O'Leary's Act Two

Shearwater 1994Eamonn Doyle's Royal St George Yacht Club Shearwater, a Dehler 36SQ

Merry Jack White sail 1806Merryjack, an Oceanis 37 (Gerry & John Bell) from Ballyholme

Published in Volvo Regatta

#whitesails – "No spinnaker" does not mean "No competition". In the cases of the White Sail Classes in Dublin Bay and elsewhere there is certainly no lack of competition with large fleets out on the racetrack throughout the summer months. Significant numbers of White Sails boats are found competing at the business end of the all-comers winter fleets giving the lie to the "No Spinnaker, Tea and Muffins" image bestowed on these mainly cruising boats, that race without flying spinnakers.
In 2014, Dun Laoghaire's Royal St. George Yacht Club inaugurated its White Sails & Non-Spinnaker Inter-club Team Challenge event, which ran over the Club's Regatta weekend in early July. The event was a huge success with all of the participants having great racing afloat and good craic ashore. The Host Club carried off the newly commissioned trophy, thought the Royal Irish challenged right to the wire.
The RSGYC challenge will be renewed for 2015 over the weekend of 12th to 14th June linking in with the Royal Alfred Yacht Club's Bloomsday Regatta which is hosted by the Royal St. George Yacht Club. The Challenge event will be run on Friday and Sunday by Race Officer, Martin Byrne, starting with a Round the Cans Welcome race at 16.00 on Friday, and then the Bloomsday Regatta races on Saturday under the guidance of Hal Beakley and finishing with an "offshore" race on Sunday. The shore-side activity includes a Friday evening Sailing Supper and a Sunday morning pre-sailing breakfast as well as the RAYC's Saturday events.
The event is open to all boats not flying a spinnaker, other than boats where the RAYC offer one-design racing. White Sails, Black Sails, Brown Sails, even Red Sails, furler and non-furler jibs – all are invited to join the fun.
KPMG are generous sponsors of this year's Royal St. George Yacht Club, White Sails and Non-Spinnaker Team Event. Notice of Race and Entry Forms are available on the club website at the unbelievable price of €75 for the three days including the Bloomsday Regatta. Racing for an IRC result will add €10.

Download poster below

Published in Racing
Tagged under

#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, now one of the biggest on Dublin Bay. The DBSC White sail season kicks off Saturday, April 21st.

Published in DBSC
Tagged under
HOWTH YACHT CLUB. WEDNESDAY SERIES 1 (RACE) 01/06/2011 Class 1 IRC: 1, Tiger Hughes/Harris; 2, Trinculo M Fleming; 3, Makutu Doyle/Others; Class 1 HPH: 1, Trinculo M Fleming; 2, Makutu Doyle/Others; 3, Tiger Hughes/Harris; Class 2 IRC: 1, Sunburn I Byrne; 2, King One D Cullen; 3, Superhero Byrne/Banahan; Class 2 HPH: 1, C'est la Vie Flannelly/Others; 2, Indigo Eadie/Ritchie; 3, Sunburn I Byrne; Class 3 IRC: 1, Gecko K Darmody; 2, Hard on Port F O'Driscoll; 3, Starlet Bourke/Others; Class 3 HPH: 1, Gecko K Darmody; 2, Midnight Sun Howard/Others; 3, Jibberish O'Kelly/Others; White Sails HPH: 1, On the Rox J & C Boyle; 2, Tantrum 3 O'Leary/Klimche; 3, Bite the Bullet C Bermingham; White Sails IRC: 1, Alphida H Byrne; 2, Bite the Bullet C Bermingham; 3, On the Rox J & C Boyle
Published in Howth YC

Details of the 2011 Sovereign's Cup were announced at a reception at Kinsale Yacht Club, hosted by Regatta Director, Gary Horgan. The Sovereign's Cup takes place from 22nd-25th June 2011 in the outer harbour of Kinsale which prides itself with excellent sailing conditions, as well as an extensive social programme ashore.
The Sovereign's Cup was established in 1995 as a biennial event and has been a very successful and hugely popular cruiser regatta, with over 140 boats from all over Ireland and the UK competing for the prestigious Sovereign's Cup for best all round score in IRC and The Portcullis Trophy for best progressive handicap.
There are many Classes for entry; including Class 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and two White Sails classes. Also, the Quarter Ton Class Championships will be taking place during the Sovereign's Cup, bringing many new visitors to Kinsale from the South of England and Wales in particular.
Eamonn Rohan in Blondie IV a Mills Design King 40, claimed the 2009 Sovereign's Cup as the 2009 Portcullis Trophy was awarded to Chapman / Reilly's Crazy Horse. Anchor Challenge captured Class 3-IRC and the Quarter Ton Class and was awarded the Keane's Jewellers Quarter Ton Perpetual Trophy.

DSCF0008

The Kinsale Yacht Club committee behind the 2011 Sovereigns Cup

"We have already received a number of entries for The 2011 Sovereign's Cup in June and we will be stepping up our sponsorship and communications programme as the months advance," said Gary Horgan, Race Director. "We are very grateful to Kinsale Yacht Club, the Race Management team and all the volunteers who get involved with the organisation of the Sovereign's Cup as we are working hard to organise an excellent programme both on and off the water. We are encouraging people to start thinking about their travel and accommodation plans and are delighted that the Cork Swansea ferry will enable more sailors to access Kinsale easily from the UK," he added.

Published in Sovereign's Cup
MGM Boats of Dun Laoghaire will sponsor Dublin Bay Sailing Club's (DBSC) Cruiser Challenge 2010 sailing taking place at the last weekend of August.

Racing for Cruisers 0,1, 2 the Sigma 33 and First 31.7 will start late afternoon on Friday 27th. Racing runs until Sunday the 29th over a selection of courses on the Bay. The event is hosted this year by the Royal Irish Yacht Club.

MGM Boats say they are committed to developing the capital's end of season regatta and along with DBSC are exploring the idea of introducing a Jeanneau Cup in 2011 along with the inclusion of the popular Class 5 or white sails division on a separate course during the regatta. The aim is  enjoyable, top quality racing that will suit all Cruiser fleets on Dublin Bay, according to the firm's Ross O'Leary. Enter to this year's event now by downloading entry forms from www.dbsc.org

Published in DBSC

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]