Sailing on Saturday with WM Nixon

The start of a very special relationship. Denis Doyle’s Moonduster approaches the finish of the 1982 Round Ireland Race to take line honours, a new course record, and the handicap win. Today’s Round Ireland crews, faced with a two month postponement of the start date, will be asking: “What would The Doyler do?”

Round Ireland Yacht Race’s New Date Emphasises its National Sailing Significance

11th April 2020 W M Nixon

If we needed a reminder of the central role which the biennial Round Ireland Yacht Race from Wicklow has grown into within Irish sailing and in the global offshore racing context during its 40 years and 20 editions, then the…

The classic stem shape exemplified by Tom Crosbie’s International 8 Metre If off Cobh in 1960. Designed and built by Bjarne Aas in Norway in 1939, the 49ft If was unusual for her class in having full standing headroom

Take a Bow! How Should Yachts Really Begin & End?

4th April 2020 W M Nixon

The accepted and popular shapes of boats and yachts in different ages changes so much that you’d be forgiven for thinking that their functions also change completely to suit the requirements of each new era. Of course, design development, measurement…

The yachts of the 1720-founded Water Club of the Harbour of Cork – the predecessor of the Royal Cork Yacht Club – as recorded on fleet manoeuvres by Dutch artist Peter Monamy in 1738. The Royal Cork YC’s unique collection of maritime art and memorabilia – some of it 300 years old – is an eloquent testimony to the continuity and quality of sailing enthusiasm in Cork Harbour.

Irish Sailing Life in the Time of Suspended Animation

27th March 2020 W M Nixon

The Covid-19-related cancellation of the pillar events planned for July in the Royal Cork Yacht Club’s Tricentenary Celebrations has had an inexorable inevitability about it for the last ten days and more. But a decision of such magnitude needed to…

Sailor of the Year Paul O’Higgins aboard his JPK 10.80 Rockabill VI in Dingle Harbour after being declared overall winner and successful title defender of the National YC’s Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race 2019

Paul O’Higgins of Royal Irish Yacht Club is the New “Sailor of the Year”

21st March 2020 W M Nixon

The potent Dun Laoghaire-based JPK 10.80 Rockabill VI may now have four very busy seasons – both inshore and offshore - in her sailing CV. But the years have not dulled her performance and competitiveness, and in 2019 she had…

“Don’t go down the mine daddy, there’s plenty of coal in the yard…..” The BH41 Silk (Jocelyn Waller, Lough Derg YC) takes soundings in the Solent. As the helmsman is Gordon Maguire, any further comment can only come from sailors of equal stature.

Ireland’s Sailing Sport is No Laughing Matter

16th March 2020 W M Nixon

When a country is brooding under the gloom of a developing and lethal global pandemic, you’d have thought that something mildly light-hearted such as the weekend’s Sailing on Saturday creation of a virtual launch party at the Royal Irish Yacht…

Racing certainty? The 1971-vintage S&S 49 Hiro Maru (Hiro Nakajima) crossing the finish line at the Royal Yacht Squadron in Cowes to win Class 3 in the 2019 Transatlantic Race. Hiro Maru is currently the senior entry in the SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race 2020, and the favourite to be the first winner of the Maybird Mast Trophy for the oldest boat to complete the course, while also being well in the reckoning for other honours.

Round Ireland Yacht Race 2020 - Virtual Launch Party Goes Ahead at Royal Irish YC

13th March 2020 W M Nixon

There’s a rumour going around about the cancellation of this week’s traditional Dublin launch in the Royal Irish Yacht Club of the biennial SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race, due to start from Wicklow Sailing Club on June 20th. The rumour…

Making sailing fun again – the user-friendly Sun Fast 3300 provides maximum sport for best-utilised effort as the boat moves over rather than through the water.

Launch of New Jeanneau Sun Fast 3300 by MGM Boats Will Make Irish Sailing Fun Again

6th March 2020 W M Nixon

We were having one of those brainstorming discussions the other day about how best to promote sailing in Ireland, when some still small voice suggested that we were going at the challenge entirely the wrong way. We were thinking in…

Strangford village’s own-build St Ayle’s Skiff. A sister-ship is to be built in Kilrush by Seol Sionna, builders and owners of the gaff cutter Sally O’Keeffe

Keeping Ireland’s Sailing & Boating Communities in Good Health is Always Work in Progress

28th February 2020 W M Nixon

This weekend two years ago, Storm Emma was sweeping Ireland, with onshore hurricane-force winds attacking much of the East Coast and wrecking a shed on Howth’s East Pier where, for decades, boats of the 1898-founded Howth Seventeen Foot class had…

A long way from Portmarnock and early seagoing experience on Asgard – Darren Nagle’s award-winning Chantey V in the majestic anchorage of Puffin Bay in Alaska

David Beattie Takes Over as Irish Cruising Club Commodore

22nd February 2020 W M Nixon

The Irish Cruising Club celebrated the completion of its successful 90th year at its Annual General Meeting in the Royal Irish YC in Dun Laoghaire last night and saw a significant change of the watch with Stanton Adair of Belfast…

If it’s February, it must be Miami…..this weekend sees two boat shows at full steam ahead in Miami, and Gerry & Martin Salmon of MGM Boats of Dun Laoghaire are with the Prestige array in the Miami Yacht Show.

Ireland’s MGM Boats Making Their Mark in Miami This Weekend

15th February 2020 W M Nixon

With the Silver Jubilee of their leading Dun Laoghaire boat agency, brokerage, dealership and boatyard only two years away, Gerry and Martin Salmon of MGM Boats find themselves in the position of being seen as senior role models in a…

Maritime Ireland. Howth Harbour on New Year’s Day 2020, with the local fishing fleet augmented by the well-kept Clogherhead fleet from Port Oriel, a small but very busy fishing port which doesn’t enjoy the same total shelter that Howth provides for the mid-winter break. The sails in the Sound inside Ireland’s Eye belong to cruisers and Lasers celebrating the first day of Howth YC’s 125th Anniversary Year

The Strange Story of the Life & Death of Ireland’s Department of the Marine

8th February 2020 W M Nixon

With Storm Ciara battering the country on this General Election day to remind us all of who is really the boss in Ireland during an average February, it’s timely to reflect on the longterm effect of the choices we make…

The Children of Danu – since this photo of Ruari and Lilian was taken as they departed from the Fastnet last June, they and their parents have been in some mighty mountain ranges, crossed oceans, navigated up jungle rivers in the tropics, and sailed to treasure islands.

Galway Family Sail the Dream to the Jungle & Paradise Islands

24th January 2020 W M Nixon

Last June, in what was meant to be the mid-summer period, Ireland was experiencing notably unseasonal weather with winds in the northerly sector which were cold - as anyone who took part in the biennial Dun Laoghaire Dingle Race will…

J/109s in the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta in Dublin Bay. Racing in Irish and nearby waters keeps the budget manageable, but aspirations to international competition and Olympic participation immediately activate a built-in travel cost before any further expenditure is taken into account

Ireland’s Location Adds Costs to Challenges of International Sailing Competition

10th January 2020 W M Nixon

It is still possible to sail in Irish waters in your own cruiser-racer without involving enormous expense. You just have to be prepared to do it in a boat of economical size which is far from being the newest available.…

Cork Harbour – “Where it All Began”. One of the finest natural harbours in the world, it provided a unique set of circumstances in 1720 to bring the world’s senior yacht club into existence, a pioneering organisation which has influenced the develpment of recreational sailing ever since. Crosshaven – home of the Royal Cork Yacht Club, is centre left

Royal Cork Yacht Club is Mitsubishi Motors 'Sailing Club of the Year 2020'

2nd January 2020 W M Nixon

The Royal Cork Yacht Club is the new Mitsubishi Motors Sailing Club of the Year, both in honour of its Tricentenary in 2020, and in celebration of a busy and successful season in 2019. The hospitable club faces this unprecedented…

Where did the original Mayflower’s Transatlantic voyage really begin? This is Mystic Seaport’s replica Mayflower II, and with the 400th Anniversary of the original’s voyage to America coming up in 2020, the people of Harwich on England’s East Coast claim that their links to the original Mayflower are much stronger than those of Plymouth in Devon.

If Your Port’s Name is Attached to a Sailing Event, Make Sure to Keep That Link Alive…

27th December 2019 W M Nixon

Some sailing events capture the popular imagination, while others – for some reason – simply pass by relatively unheeded. Either way, there’s no doubting that the 628-mile Rolex Sydney-Hobart Race is in the former category, with its crazy Christmas-time start…

Hot favourite in a heatwave: Matt Allen’s Botin TP 52 Ichi Ban 2 – with Gordon Maguire (on helm here) as sailing master - is reckoned to be the banker for next Thursday’s 75th Rolex Sydney-Hobart Race.

Irish Sailing Looks to the Southern Hemisphere in Winter Solstice Weekend

20th December 2019 W M Nixon

In Australia, the unprecedented heatwave is so totally engulfing the continent that respected observers of maritime weather patterns such as Matt Allen, owner/skipper of the very special Botin-designed TP52 development Ichi Ban 2, reckon that we’ll have to be a…