Sailing on Saturday with WM Nixon
There are reasonably sound scientific reasons for thinking that any living breathing mammal in the Northern Hemisphere will be slightly off his, her or its trolley as the month of March comes upon us. In fact, after the long gloom…
The concept of the Golden Globe Challenge, the four-yearly non-stop round the world race for boats not more than 36ft LOA designed pre-1988 with a traditional closed hull shape, may indeed have developed in order to celebrate Robin Knox-Johnston’s pioneering…
We all know that drink was invented to stop the Irish ruling the world. But on the same theme, the Irish sailing community has always quietly nurtured the thought that if our usual weather could just be somehow modified to…
Sailing in West Cork for the past couple of weeks and more seems to have been elevated onto a new plane of meaning and enjoyment, with events around the traditional Baltimore Regatta on the Bank Holiday weekend (July 31st-August 2nd)…
As the proposed 2026 international sailing programme began to move from the possible though the probable to the completely definite stages, the Research Unit here in the Sailing on Saturday Production Facility began to be concerned that planned big sailing…
With much of humanity still stunned in the sensory overload of the post-FIFA World Cup withdrawal symptoms, our ILCA sailors at home are benefitting from a dose of reality with a fleet of a hundred and more lined up for…
All Eyes Increasingly Towards Dun Laoghaire’s World Major As 2026 Season Progresses Through Second Half
18th July 2026 W M Nixon
The 2026 ILCA 7 Worlds in Dublin Bay from 23rd to 30th August, co-hosted by the National Yacht Club and Royal St George YC of Dun Laoghaire is by all official ratings the most important sailing event in Ireland this year. Sailing being…
The sense of land and sea interacting dynamically always seems much stronger around Cork Harbour than in most other places in Ireland, and never more so than in Cork Week with the Royal Cork Yacht Club in Crosshaven. There, the…
Time was when a disagreement arose about some ancient disputed event between people from England and those from Ireland, you could only expect two conclusions from the heat of the argument. Firstly, if our friends from across the water were…
It’s Regatta Time in Ireland, with Competing, Haggling and Selling at Retail
27th June 2026 Royal Irish Yacht Club
It’s currently Regatta Time in a big way in Ireland at the Royal Irish YC in Dun Laoghaire and the Bangor clubs on Belfast Lough, with high stakes in terms of appropriate weather and the provision of good sailing. As…
Ireland’s Women Sailors Setting the Summertime Pace In Dublin Bay
13th June 2026 Royal Irish Yacht Club
The Royal Irish Yacht Club is building up to the beginning of its many and varied 195th Anniversary events in a week’s time, celebrating life afloat and ashore with Winifred Kelliher as the club’s first woman Commodore. Further along the…
In the secret world of sailing, we readily use terms like “One Ton Cup” and its offshoots in a way that assumes total awareness by the listener of its multiple meanings, thereby further excluding those who find the language of…
The preliminary instructions suggest that the race from Kinsale would be round either the faraway Inishtearaght on the edge of the Blaskets, or the less distant but equally majestic Skellig Michael. It’s an opening salvo that gives a sense of…
Tom Dolan’s marvellous sunrise victory on Thursday in Stage 1 of the 2026 Figaro Solitaire was the most effective starting signal we could hope for in order to encourage us all into thinking the 2026 season really is under way…
The spectacular life and high-achieving times of Ted Turner (1938-2026) have become deeply interwoven with the folklore of international sailing and the tales of the global media and communications industry. So much so, in fact, that after his death at…
Round Ireland Race Introduces Fresh Angle On Sail Training, And Brings The Great Alexis Loison On Board
9th May 2026 Round Ireland
What goes round, come round. Way back in 1972 we were doing a very leisurely family cruise with a Galion 22 in West Cork (small family then), and went in company with Dermod Kennedy and his ketch Richard of Baltimore…
