Ireland

311 Irish boats with home water at the Fastnet — an Atlantic fleet drawn for the western approaches, with J/Boats its most-common drawing board.

Kinship

Every fleet has a fingerprint.

From the Solent’s tide-lines to the Aegean Meltemia — find your waters.

 Hidden Shape

The hidden shape of the fleet.
The kinds of boat that keep appearing when every hull is measured the same way.

How every Irish boat clusters, before the results arrive.
311
boats
19
events
National fleet view · as of 2026-08-20

ORC Authority: ORC Ireland

ORC Ireland governs a fleet steeped in the world's oldest sailing heritage. The fleet's boats carry a FleetEdge identity under the Irish flag, racing across the Irish Sea, Cork Harbour, Dublin Bay, and the western approaches. The Royal Cork Yacht Club, founded in 1720, is the oldest yacht club in the world, and Irish offshore racing centers on the Irish Sea Offshore Racing Association (ISORA) cross-Irish-Sea circuit, Cork Week, Dublin Bay club racing, and Ireland's home-water access to the Rolex Fastnet — the Fastnet Rock sits off Ireland's southwest coast, turning the long Cowes-to-Cherbourg offshore into a back-garden run for Irish campaigns and putting the western approaches' chop and Atlantic weather at the door of every Irish program.

Ireland is an Atlantic fleet with a Fastnet home-water advantage, and J/Boats is its most-common drawing board. J/Boats — the Rod Johnstone (Johnstone R) drawing board — is the most-common design office in a national fleet spread across many boards, carrying 44 of the fleet's boats (14.1%): the J-109, the J-80 one-design, and the wider J family account for roughly one Irish hull in seven. The J-109 in particular is the Irish offshore default and the ISORA cross-Irish-Sea backbone, while the J-80 sharpens Irish club and harbor racing as a tight one-design class. Irish teams push into the international calendar through the Rolex Fastnet — with the Fastnet Rock as Irish home water — the Cowes Offshore Series, and the wider IRC offshore circuit.

The archetype distribution opens with LEANFORCE in the lead at 35.7% — the compact-scale family of the 2026 census — with SPARKFLEX next in count order at 19.0%, the minimal-scale one-design cluster built around the J-80 and J-24, and LEANRUN third at 17.7%, the large-platform group that carries the fleet's bigger offshore hulls. Together the leading three carry 225 of the fleet's boats, and Ireland therefore reads as a concentrated fleet rather than an even spread — a compact-scale core answering the western approaches' Atlantic chop and the tidal gates of the Irish Sea, with the one-design cluster and the large-platform offshore group nearly level behind it. All archetypes of the 2026 census are populated. The forward path runs the ISORA cross-Irish-Sea circuit, Cork Week, the Round Ireland Race 704 nm loop, and the home-water Rolex Fastnet around the Fastnet Rock.

National fleet view · 311 boats · as of 2026-08-20

At a glance

Ireland — structural profile.

Scope
311 boats
147 ORC-rated · 164 mapped-IRC
Top 3 archetypes
  1. LEANFORCE — 111 boats (35.7%)
  2. SPARKFLEX — 59 boats (19.0%)
  3. LEANRUN — 55 boats (17.7%)
Eight canonical performance archetypes cluster the fleet by dimensional signature. See the full map →
Top designer cluster
Johnstone R
44 boats (14.1%) — the most-represented design voice in this fleet.

Counts and archetype assignments above are measured from the current corpus. Commentary below is interpretive.

National fleet view · as of 2026-08-20
Fleet DNA

How the Irish boats are built.

311 boats in the fleet, 308 of them attributed across the archetypes of the 2026 census — LEANFORCE leading at 35.7%, with SPARKFLEX next in count order at 19.0% and LEANRUN third at 17.7%. Here's how the fleet clusters, and what the collective signature reveals about how Ireland races.

The Irish ORC Fleet Signature

LEANFORCE leads Ireland's Atlantic fleet at 35.7% (111 boats) — the compact-scale family of the 2026 census. SPARKFLEX follows at 19.0% (59 boats), the minimal-scale one-design cluster built around the J-80 and J-24, and LEANRUN holds third at 17.7% (55 boats), the large-platform family that carries the fleet's bigger offshore hulls. Together the leading three carry 225 of the fleet's boats, so Ireland is a concentrated fleet rather than an even spread — a compact-scale core with the one-design cluster and the large-platform offshore group nearly level behind it. All archetypes of the 2026 census are populated, drawn from a fleet whose most-common drawing board is J/Boats (Johnstone R), and whose home water is the western approaches and the Fastnet Rock.

  • LEANFORCE 35.7% · 111 boats
  • SPARKFLEX 19.0% · 59 boats
  • LEANRUN 17.7% · 55 boats

Dimension emphasis: Hull Efficiency · Crew Intelligence · Comparative Time

A five-boat Irish contingent raced the 2025 Rolex Fastnet Race — Ireland's home-water offshore around the Fastnet Rock. See the selected race result.

Complete data Latest published view

LEANFORCE

Compact scale — downwind-neutral in banked race evidence.

weak upwind · neutral reaching · weak downwind

Boats 111
Share 35.7%
  • Elan 333
  • Miura
  • Dufour 30 Classic

LEANRUN

Large scale · upright posture — downwind-neutral in banked race evidence.

neutral upwind · neutral reaching · neutral downwind

Boats 55
Share 17.7%
  • First 36.7
  • J-109
  • First 35

AEROFORCE

Large scale · level posture · neutral reserve — reaching-constrained in banked race evidence.

neutral upwind · weak reaching · neutral downwind

Boats 25
Share 8.0%
  • First 40.7
  • X-43
  • Grand Soleil 40

SPARKFLEX

Minimal scale · upright posture · tender reserve — downwind-constrained in banked race evidence.

weak upwind · moderate reaching · weak downwind

Boats 59
Share 19.0%
  • J-80 OD
  • J-24
  • J-70 ONE DESIGN

HEFTLINE

Compact scale · level posture · stiff reserve — reaching-neutral in banked race evidence.

moderate upwind · moderate reaching · moderate downwind

Boats 24
Share 7.7%
  • J-111
  • Farr 30
  • Cape 31

AEROSTREAM

Towering scale · level posture · stiff reserve — measured downwind advantage in banked race evidence.

strong upwind · weak reaching · strong downwind

Boats 5
Share 1.6%
  • TP-52
  • XP-44
  • Farr 40

KEELRUN

Compact scale · upright posture · neutral reserve — reaching-neutral in banked race evidence.

moderate upwind · strong reaching · moderate downwind

Boats 8
Share 2.6%
  • First 31.7
  • J-105
  • Sunfast 3200

AEROCORE

Large scale · upright posture · tender reserve — measured downwind advantage in banked race evidence.

neutral upwind · neutral reaching · neutral downwind

Boats 21
Share 6.8%
  • First 36
  • Bavaria CR 46
  • J-120

Event cohort view · 5 boats · as of 2026-08-20

Selected Race Result

Rolex Fastnet Race 2025 — Irish contingent.

5 of 311 fleet boats competed. A single offshore race of roughly 695 nautical miles from Cowes around the Fastnet Rock to Cherbourg, scored overall. July 2025.

Headlines

What led the Irish entries at the Fastnet.

Most recent event in the Irish corpus: Cowes Week 2026 (1–7 August 2026). Irish entries raced the Solent regatta week — the latest event the published view links to the national fleet. Its archetype lens, dated to the FleetEdge analysis nearest the event, is the Cowes Week 2026 Race Archetypes grid at the foot of this panel; the featured Fastnet read follows here.

For Comparative Time, negative = faster than the rating expects (the boat beat its rating); positive = slower. For Crew Residual, negative = the crew beat the boat's archetype-expected pace (stronger execution); positive = below that baseline.

Comparative Time

1. NIEULARGO · −21.1 sec/nm
2. AURELIA · −7.3 sec/nm
3. PRIME SUSPECT · +20.6 sec/nm

Upwind VMG (12 kt)

1. AURELIA · 5.52 kt
2. PRIME SUSPECT · 5.37 kt
3. NIEULARGO · 5.18 kt

Crew Residual

1. NIEULARGO · −21.1 sec/nm
2. AURELIA · −7.3 sec/nm
3. PRIME SUSPECT · +20.6 sec/nm

Comparative Time and Crew Residual are FleetEdge corrected-time analytics computed on the four Irish boats at the Fastnet with comparison records; Upwind VMG is the certificate-derived beat VMG at 12 kt across the same four entries. A fifth Irish boat, ZERO II, finished but carries no comparative read. Source: published Rolex Fastnet Race 2025 standings · as of 2026-08-20.

Stories

What the Irish entries showed.

Performance Verdict

NIEULARGO AEROFORCE: 21 sec/nm clear of its rating at the Rock.

The Cork-based Grand Soleil 40 NIEULARGO AEROFORCE led the five-boat Irish contingent on FleetEdge's corrected-time read, beating its ORC allowance by 21.1 sec/nm — the widest margin of the Irish entries, and roughly 19 sec/nm clear of the race-wide comparison median. The crew-residual lens reads the same −21.1 sec/nm — execution ahead of the archetype-expected pace, not the platform alone. A 76th place on the race's overall IRC corrected-time standings is mid-fleet at a 400-plus-boat international race, but on the corrected-time lens NIEULARGO was the strongest Irish read of the running.

  • Comparative Time: −21.1 sec/nm · best of the Irish cohort
  • Crew Residual: −21.1 sec/nm · execution ahead of the archetype-expected pace
Boat-led · single-event Corrected time
Nationality / Class Cluster

The J/Boats lineage that races the Fastnet from its own back garden.

The Fastnet Rock sits off Ireland's southwest coast, which makes the Rolex Fastnet Race the rare 695 nm offshore that turns on Irish home water — and the J/Boats drawing board, the most-common in the national fleet at 14.1%, is the lineage that sails it. The J-109 is the Irish offshore default and the ISORA cross-Irish-Sea backbone; the wider J family carries the club-and-coastal layer of the five-boat contingent that started in 2025 — including the J-122 AURELIA AEROSTREAM, second of the Irish boats on corrected time. This is a small national slice at a 400-plus-boat international race, not an Irish command of the result — but it is the home-water entry of a fleet whose largest single design office was drawn for exactly this kind of pressure-on, tide-gated Atlantic water.

  • J/Boats (Johnstone R): 14.1% · most-common Irish drawing board
  • Region: Fastnet Rock · Irish home water on the western approaches
Structural · single-event Designer mix
Race Archetypes

93 boats classified in the Rolex Fastnet Race 2025.

The Fastnet fleet's structural makeup — how the 93-boat classified group, of the 210 boats FleetEdge observed in the race, clusters across the FleetEdge archetypes, and where the Irish contingent sits within it: four of the five Irish starters carry a classified read. AEROSTREAM and AEROCORE tie at the head of the event lens, with HEFTLINE and LEANRUN level behind. This is the event lens, distinct from the 311-boat national Fleet DNA.

Archetype assignments dated 2026-08-20 — the FleetEdge analysis nearest this event.

AEROSTREAM

Towering scale · level posture · stiff reserve — measured downwind advantage in banked race evidence.

Boats 26
Share 28.0%

AEROCORE

Large scale · upright posture · tender reserve — measured downwind advantage in banked race evidence.

Boats 26
Share 28.0%

HEFTLINE

Compact scale · level posture · stiff reserve — reaching-neutral in banked race evidence.

Boats 12
Share 12.9%

LEANRUN

Large scale · upright posture — downwind-neutral in banked race evidence.

Boats 12
Share 12.9%

LEANFORCE

Compact scale — downwind-neutral in banked race evidence.

Boats 7
Share 7.5%

KEELRUN

Compact scale · upright posture · neutral reserve — reaching-neutral in banked race evidence.

Boats 5
Share 5.4%

AEROFORCE

Large scale · level posture · neutral reserve — reaching-constrained in banked race evidence.

Boats 5
Share 5.4%
Race Archetypes

Cowes Week 2026 (1–7 August 2026) — the most recent event in the Irish corpus.

Irish entries raced the Solent regatta week of 1–7 August 2026 — the latest event the published view links to the national fleet. How the week's classified entries cluster across the FleetEdge archetypes: AEROSTREAM leads the event lens, with AEROCORE and AEROFORCE next. This is the event lens — distinct from the national Fleet DNA and from the featured Fastnet read above.

Archetype assignments dated 2026-08-20 — the FleetEdge analysis nearest this event.

AEROCORE

Large scale · upright posture · tender reserve — measured downwind advantage in banked race evidence.

Boats 3
Share 20.0%

AEROSTREAM

Towering scale · level posture · stiff reserve — measured downwind advantage in banked race evidence.

Boats 4
Share 26.7%

AEROFORCE

Large scale · level posture · neutral reserve — reaching-constrained in banked race evidence.

Boats 3
Share 20.0%

HEFTLINE

Compact scale · level posture · stiff reserve — reaching-neutral in banked race evidence.

Boats 1
Share 6.7%

LEANRUN

Large scale · upright posture — downwind-neutral in banked race evidence.

Boats 2
Share 13.3%

SPARKFLEX

Minimal scale · upright posture · tender reserve — downwind-constrained in banked race evidence.

Boats 1
Share 6.7%

LEANFORCE

Compact scale — downwind-neutral in banked race evidence.

Boats 1
Share 6.7%

Classified fleet view · 308 of 311 classified · as of 2026-08-20

Fleet Stories

The Irish fleet signature.

J/Boats — Ireland's most-common design office

J/Boats — the Rod Johnstone (Johnstone R) drawing board — carries 44 of the 311 IRL-flagged boats, 14.1%, the largest single share in a fleet spread across many design offices. The J/Boats footprint runs through the J-109, the J-80 one-design, and the wider J family on Irish entry lists; the J-109 in particular has been the Irish offshore default and the ISORA cross-Irish-Sea backbone for two decades. In a fleet otherwise split among Beneteau's First-series racer-cruisers and a long tail of individual boards, a most-common drawing board at roughly one hull in seven reflects Ireland's bias toward proven, balanced racer-cruisers built for the western approaches' mix of chop, tide, and Atlantic pressure.

The J-109 backbone

The J-109 is the single most-common class in the Irish fleet at 18 boats, 5.8% of all IRL hulls, ahead of the First 34.7 and the J-80 one-design (13 apiece) and the First 36.7 (11). The J-109 is the J/Boats short-handed offshore default and the ISORA cross-Irish-Sea backbone — a 35-foot racer-cruiser that holds value as both a club platform and an offshore campaign boat. Its presence at the top of the class table is the production-fleet expression of the same J/Boats lean the designer signature shows: Ireland races a proven, mid-size offshore class rather than a spread of one-off custom hulls.

LEANFORCE leads the Irish distribution

LEANFORCE — the compact-scale family of the 2026 census — carries 111 boats, 35.7% of the national fleet and the leading count-order share. The lean says Irish racing clusters on compact platforms that reward disciplined crew work over raw scale — the profile of the club, harbor, and coastal hulls that fill Irish entry lists. It is a long-running structural preference across the fleet, not a single-race signal.

Popular Classes

The boats that define Irish racing.

J-109 (18)

The J/Boats short-handed offshore default — the ISORA cross-Irish-Sea backbone of the Irish fleet.

First 34.7 (13)

Beneteau's compact Farr-drawn racer-cruiser — a forgiving, well-priced IRC and ORC platform.

J-80 OD (13)

The J/Boats one-design sportboat — a tight, level class that sharpens Irish club and harbor racing.

First 36.7 (11)

Beneteau's mid-size Farr-designed IRC racer-cruiser of the 2000s — a durable club-and-coastal workhorse.

First 31.7 (9)

Beneteau's Finot-designed club racer — the backbone of European ORC fleets.

Continue

Go deeper.

ORC World Fleet

How Ireland's 311-boat fleet sits inside the global ORC fleet and the international offshore landscape.

Fastnet

The Rolex Fastnet Race — Ireland's home-water offshore around the Fastnet Rock.

Cowes Offshore

The Cowes-anchored offshore series Irish teams race across the Solent and English Channel.

United Kingdom

Geographic peer fleet — the Solent, the English Channel, and the IRC offshore axis Irish teams race alongside.

Fleet Archetypes

The 8 canonical performance archetypes — LEANFORCE, LEANRUN, SPARKFLEX, and the full set of design groups that clusters Ireland's fleet.

Fleet Overview

The global offshore racing landscape and how Ireland's fleet fits within it.

Join the world's offshore racing teams.

Historical weather meets hull physics — every fleet, every leg.

See Ireland Racing — Fastnet See Fleet Overview