Sailing on Saturday with WM Nixon

Galway Family’s Atlantic Circuit Cruise Provides Contrast to Hectic Racing Programme

22nd June 2019 W M Nixon

Midsummer’s Weekend, and Irish sailing pauses for breath in this most hectic of sailing seasons writes W M Nixon. There are other events going on during these next two days, but let’s hope the most relaxed and non-competitive tone is…

An unlikely pairing…..Paul O’Higgins’ JPK 1080 Rockabill VI and Mick Cotter’s Southern Wind 94 Windfall get cleanly and swiftly away together from the start of the 270-mile Volvo Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race 2019 on Wednesday evening. Windfall took line honours while defending champion Rockabill VI was the IRC Overall Winner for the second time. It was a credit to the IRC system that the maxi Windfall was 8th overall on handicap in a varied fleet of 41 boats

Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race’s Final Leg Highlighted the Need to Keep Stamina in Reserve

15th June 2019 W M Nixon

The final stage of the Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race, the 15 miles from Skellig Michael to the finish line on the north shore of Dingle Bay at the ampitheatre-like entrance to Dingle Harbour, may seem like an easy jaunt…

Paul O’Higgin’s defending champion, the JPK 1080 Rockabill VI, will be hoping for firm breezes for next Wednesday’s 280-mile National YC Volvo Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race

Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race 2019 – Unpredictable Weather, Unpredictable Outcome

8th June 2019 W M Nixon

Will the Volvo Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race next Wednesday find itself sailing with mostly fair winds asks W M Nixon. Will the presence of lows to the west of them, and other lows to the southeast, provide a line…

Racing the Scottish Series on Loch Fyne under the hills and mountains can be tricky. Approaching the mark in the hot RC35 Class, leading boat Chimaera (Andrew Craig RIYC) gets a sudden wind shift, yet still manages to carry her deflated finery round the turn. But right up her transom Something Else (John & Brian Hall NYC) and Hijacker (Stuart Cranston & J Buchanan, Down Cr C) are now hard on the wind - such as it is

Ireland’s IRC Success in Scotland Was No Flash in the Pan

1st June 2019 W M Nixon

The Clyde Cruising Club’s Scottish Series has long been a happy hunting ground for Irish boats and crews writes W M Nixon. We remember with particular fondness the great days of the Royal Cork YC’s Corby 36 Antix, with which…

The restored Ilen of Limerick sails into Dublin Bay for the first time in 21 years for visits to Poolbeg, Dun Laoghaire and Howth. This weekend, she’s back in her birthplace of Baltimore

Baltimore Wooden Boat Festival Welcomes Restored Ilen Home to Her Birthplace After Historic Dublin Visit

25th May 2019 W M Nixon

Three million euro - every bit of €3 million writes W M Nixon. That’s what the late Theo Rye, internationally-recognised expert on the restoring and re-building of classic and traditional craft, reckoned that breathing new life into Ireland’s historic 56ft…

Mick Cotter’s SouthWind 94 Windfall is the largest boat entered for next month’s Volvo Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race run by the National YC, and he’ll be looking to topple the course record he established with the 78ft Whisper in 2009.

Volvo Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Yacht Race 2019: The “Little Big One” With Everything

18th May 2019 W M Nixon

You’ll seldom if ever hear anyone who has actually done the biennial Volvo Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race dismissing it in an offhand way as some sort of Round Ireland Lite writes W M Nixon. It may only be 280…

Timeless good looks, yet practical in every way. It takes a real effort to accept that the Laser is notching the Golden Jubilee this year

Ireland’s Classic Sailing Boats are Ageless

11th May 2019 W M Nixon

At a time when we’re constantly being warned in public life that we have to mark the current “Era of Centenaries” in a sensitive manner, it’s probably insensitive to respond by pointing out that the Irish sailing community is having…

A unique club in a unique setting – when Howth Yacht Club moved into its new premises at mid-harbour early in 1987, it became that year’s Mitsubishi Motors “Sailing Club of the Year”.

Howth Yacht Club’s Mitsubishi Motors “Club of the Year” Award Honours a Very Special Organisation

4th May 2019 W M Nixon

Environmental awareness and sailing success to top international level were dynamically intertwined at this week’s official presentation of the Mitsubishi Motors “Sailing Club of the Year 2019” award to Howth Yacht Club writes W M Nixon The announcement that Howth…

Bernard Moitessier’s steel ketch Joshua. A One-Design class of ten new boats developed to this design is planned to provide the backbone of the fleet for the 2022 Golden Globe re-enactment.

The Golden Globe Race: Re-enactments of Great Sailing Achievements & Should The Past Be Left in Peace?

27th April 2019 Golden Globe Race

For those of us who find historical re-enactments to be slightly spooky, following the twists and turns of the Golden Globe Golden Jubilee Race through the latter half of 2018 and into the early months of 2019 has been -…

Limerick’s Ketch Ilen to Be Put in Focus With “Salmons Wake” Voyage to Greenland

19th April 2019 W M Nixon

The historic ketch Ilen of Limerick puts to sea again from her home port this weekend at the beginning of a complex 2019 sailing programme which will see the restored ship voyage in July towards southwest Greenland writes W M…

The Swiss entry Team Work (Justine Mettraux and Gwenola Gahinet) showing the new Figaro 3’s foiling potential during the current Sardinha Cup series. A non-foiling version of the boat is being proposed as an economical possibility for the new Olympic Offshore Class. Meanwhile, the new fleet have to address some rig challenges and other teething problems before the Golden Jubilee Figaro brings the class to Kinsale in early June

Do the Irish Lose the Run of Themselves Aiming for the Vendee Globe?

13th April 2019 W M Nixon

The miraculous years of 2016 and 2017 provided a magic time in Irish sailing writes W M Nixon. Annalise won her Olympic Silver Medal. Shane McCarthy won the GP14 Worlds. And the most glamorous Round Ireland Race ever staged saw…

Editorial desk with a difference……..on board the 64ft gaff cutter Annabel-J, powering along off the West Coast of Ireland. Annabel-J is owned by long distance voyager Andrew Wilkes and his wife Maire Breathnach of Dungarvan, who is currently Honorary Editor of the Irish Cruising Club Annual

Irish Cruising Club Fulfill Idealistic Objectives Set By Founders 90 Years Ago

29th March 2019 W M Nixon

When the Irish Cruising Club was established in Glengarriff at the head of Bantry Bay on Saturday 13th July 1929, the friendly gathering of the crews from a modest flotilla of five decidedly varied sailing yachts – mostly small craft…

Special gathering – the four “Sailors of the Year” together in Sutton this week are (left to right) Conor Fogerty (2017), Annalise Murphy (2016) and Sean Waddilove & Rob Dickson (2018)

Annalise Brings Stardust to Sutton & the Dickson-Waddilove Tokyo 2020 Campaign

23rd March 2019 W M Nixon

Annalise Murphy’s role in raising sailing’s profile in Ireland was brought home to us last weekend when The Irish Times ran a St Patrick’s Eve Quiz. Set by Eoin Butler, it aimed to test how truly Irish we who like…

An eye-catching book cover…….having Winslow Homer’s famous 1899 painting “The Gulf Stream” - with its graphic suggestions of inevitable tragedy - superimposed by the chirpy title “Fun with Sailboats” may not be to everyone’s taste. But it certainly captures attention for American Pete Brennan’s book on his sometimes quirky sailing experiences on both sides of the Atlantic

New American Sailing Book with Irish Input Gives a Fresh Angle on our Scene Afloat

18th March 2019 W M Nixon

Pete Brennan is an American of partially Irish ancestry who came originally from New Jersey, and now lives in Florida writes W M Nixon. For most of his life he has had steady jobs which had nothing whatever to do…

Just the place to go on a cold night in March. The National YC in Dun Laoghaire tonight hosts the Annual Dinner of the Shannon One Design Association, with the overall award – the Transom Trophy - going to Andrew Mannion of Athlone, who sails with Lough Ree YC.

The Different Class Associations of Sailing in Ireland are a “Benevolent Mafia”

9th March 2019 W M Nixon

They’re the sometimes well-hidden glue that holds key elements of Irish sailing together writes W M Nixon. They’re a formidable power in our sport. They might seem to outsiders like secret societies. Yet each in its own way – for…

The Water Club of the Harbour of Cork on fleet manoeuvres at sea in 1738, as recorded by Dutch artist Peter Monamy. Today, the flags may have changed, the boats may be different, and it is now the Royal Cork Yacht Club. But the spirit of 1720 lives on with its Tricentenary next year. Image courtesy RCYC

Irish Sailing Heads into Two Years of Celebration & Commemoration

1st March 2019 W M Nixon

Sailing in Ireland is a sport of long-lived organisations, writes W M Nixon. It’s a vehicle sport in which a significant number of the sailing vehicles are cherished classics, sometimes passed down from one generation to the next. Like it…