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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

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#420 – The International 420 Class has launched the Exercise e-Book, a new online training resource targeted at providing world class training techniques and strategies on Performance Improvement for Coaches and Sailors.

The new International 420 Class Association Exercise e-Book provides a selection of carefully chosen performance training exercises, with accompanying video and commentary to provide sailors and coaches with a step by step path to improving their skills. From covering boat set-up to techniques at mark roundings, strategies and tactics on the startline to gybing in strong winds, the e-Book covers a diverse range of training exercises. The International 420 Class Association Exercise e-Book is provided free of charge to 420 sailors and coaches around the world.

The International 420 Class Association recognizes the valuable role coaches play in sailors' development and wants to provide equal opportunity to coaches around the world to access training techniques and improve their own skills. The e-Book provides a clear explanation of the purpose of the training technique, details of equipment required and guidance on how to evaluate performances for sailors of all abilities, as well as sections including boat preparation and setting up a 420. The video and animation break down the manoeuvres into easily digestible chunks. Additional advice, tips and debrief notes provide maximum guidance and best methods of benchmarking sailors' progress.

Reigning Olympic Gold medallist in the 470 Class and five-time 470 World Champion Mat Belcher thoroughly endorses the initiative. Australia's Belcher won the 420 World Championships in the year 2000, with his brother Daniel, and claimed a silver medal with his now wife Rike Belcher in 2004.

Belcher commented, "To help reduce the skills gap and make the sport more accessible to all must be one of our collective goals. I really applaud the initiative of the International 420 Class to launch this innovative training programme. Even for those sailors without a coach, they can read the e-Book and watch the videos and develop their own training programmes. This is a really fantastic resource."

Packed with imaginative training techniques, the e-Book will prove to be an invaluable resource for coaches and sailors. The range of exercises covers Basic, Racing and Advanced level sailors. The e-Book includes warm-up exercises, training exercises, boat handling and manoeuvre exercises.

Coming together with other sailors and a coach to train is a great experience, but the online resource will also help those who are training individually and unable to regularly work with a coach.

Nino Shmueli, International 420 Class Association President said, "The 420 Class' objective is to facilitate equal opportunity for access to training resources for 420 sailors and coaches around the world. We are fortunate to have developed the e-Book with renowned coach Nikos Drougkas, who is a regarded and inspirational coach to many. The 420 Class wants to revolutionize the availability of expert knowledge and make it available free of charge through the imaginative use of online platforms. Whilst developed by the 420 Class, the training resource is relevant for all dinghy and small boat sailors."

The International 420 Class Association Exercise e-Book is the second online training resource developed by the International 420 Class Association. In 2011, the 420 Class launched 420 to the Max, a range of free online videos introducing training techniques, for beginners and experienced sailors. Clear direction and guidance demonstrates how to master techniques in different wind and sea conditions and what to consider when undertaking manoeuvres. Available in English, French, German, Spanish and Japanese, the 420 to the Max videos have attracted in excess of 200,000 views – clear evidence of the worldwide appetite for online training.

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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.

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]