Sailing on Saturday with WM Nixon

Denis & Annamarie Murphy's Grand Soleil 40 Nieulargo (Royal Cork YC) racing off Dublin Bay, which this weekend sees her start as one of the favourites in the 270-mile Fastnet 450 Race.

Fastnet 450 Race Has Come to Mean So Much for Frustrated Irish Sailing in 2020

22nd August 2020 Dun Laoghaire Harbour News

The Fastnet 450 starts today (Saturday) at 1300hrs in Dublin Bay, and sends the fleet on a 270-mile course southward, taking them all the way to the Fastnet Rock before finishing back at the entrance to Cork Harbour, clear of…

"Warriors About to Go into Battle". This properly serious-looking foursome from the cream of the 1982 Irish Laser Class, with their mentor Ron Huthcieson on right, are (left to right) Simon Brien (later multiple Edinburgh Cup winner and other majors), multiple champion Charlie Taylor (still at it in the Laser Masters), Olympian Bill O'Hara, and Dave Cummins, All-Ireland Helmsmans Champion 1981 and 1982

Ron Hutchieson's Generous Multiple Roles are a Historic Sailing Era in Themselves

15th August 2020 Northern Ireland Waters

The retirement this month of noted northern sailor Ron Hutchieson as Chairman of Irish Sailing's Racing Rules & Appeals Board brings to a conclusion an exceptionally long period of devoted and very effective honorary official service to sailing and its…

First into the ring…Rupert Barry’s JOD35 Red Alert from Greystones was the first fully-confirmed entry for the Fastnet 450 in two weeks’ time

Fastnet 450: Nothing New Here – Dublin Bay to Cork Harbour Race 1860 Was Pop-up Too

7th August 2020 Fastnet 450 Race

It’s called the SCORA Fastnet 450 which is a zinger of a name, whatever it means, and right now it’s taking shape as we go along in best pop-up style, having come centre stage after the Round Ireland Race was…

Denis Doyle’s new Crosshaven-built Moonduster makes her debut off Cork in 1981, the year after the first Round Ireland Race was sailed from Wicklow. The following year, when her owner was already 62 with a lifetime of offshore racing experience and success behind him, he brought Moonduster to Wicklow for the new biennial Round Ireland event, and remained loyal to it for the rest of his long sailing career

Round Ireland Refunds? The Doyler Would Tell Them to Keep Entry Fee for 2022’s Race

31st July 2020 Round Ireland

“What would The Doyler do?” That was the question we asked here when writing with resigned sadness on 11th April about the pandemic-induced two-month postponement - from 20th June - of the Wicklow start of the SSE Renewables Round Ireland…

Glory days. George David’s mighty Rambler 88, overall winner and course record breaker in 2016. A Round Ireland race in 2020 will inevitably be a much less flamboyant affair

Round Ireland Yacht Race 2020 from Wicklow? It’s Decision Time

25th July 2020 W M Nixon

With just four weeks to go to the proposed re-scheduled start of the SSE Renewables Round Ireland Yacht Race 2020 on August 22nd, the word is that a final decision as to whether it is going ahead – and indeed,…

“Every summer Saturday is Regatta Day” The Howth 17s Isobel (Turvey brothers) and Deiliginis (Massey, Twomey & Kenny) demonstrating their Saturday style. They try to maximize crew numbers, and thus have declined involvement in today’s Two-Hander at Howth.

Facemasks With Club Logos An Idea as Big Events Fall While Smaller Ones Quietly Take Place

18th July 2020 W M Nixon

A while back, the off-the-wall idea was mooted of creating a line of quality face-masks, tastefully printed or even embroidered with sailing and yacht club logos. The world of high fashion was already on to the idea of designer-labelled COVID-contesting…

The Royal Cork Yacht Club Tricentenary is up and running. Thursday night’s exuberant club racing was a declaration that while the international element of the celebrations may have been COVID-curtailed, the core membership element of the 300-year-old club at Crosshaven is very much in action at home.

Royal Cork Yacht Club’s Home Membership Keep Tricentenary Celebrations Going

11th July 2020 W M Nixon

There are three Royal Cork Yacht Clubs. One is the globally-recognised historic institution which is directly descended from the Water Club of the Harbour of Cork founded three hundred years ago, the oldest yacht club in the world. The second…

The Clondalkin community-built 43ft Galway Hooker Naomh Cronan on Dublin Bay in 2003, with Stiofan O Laoire at the helm. Launched new in 1997, she had been based on Ireland’s East Coast until this week at Poolbeg Y&BC, regularly appearing in traditional events at home and abroad. But now she has moved west into new management with the Claddagh Boatmen in Galway City

Irish Traditional Boat Naomh Cronan Goes West Amidst New Government Structures

4th July 2020 W M Nixon

If you’re having trouble processing the full implications of the fascinating new portmanteau ministry which has emerged this week from the formation of our latest government, not to worry. You’d be on your own if you weren’t a little bit…

Gotcha! The 1898-built Cork Harbour OD Jap is discovered hidden away at Truro in the uppermost reaches of Falmouth Estuary in Cornwall in August 1994, cleverly disguised as an attractive little cruiser. Jap has now returned as a restored classic to Cork Harbour. Photo: W M Nixon

Cork Harbour One Designs & Ireland's Hidden Sailing Story

27th June 2020 Cork Harbour

It is a truth not universally acknowledged that the steady pint-drinking communities of Cork city and south Munster contributed substantially to the resourcing of the newly-formed Ulster Volunteer Force’s uprising against the proposed introduction of Home Rule for Ireland in…

Atlantic voyager Garry Crothers with wife Marie and daughters Oonagh (left) and Amy (right) aboard their Ovni 435 Kind of Blue in the Caribbean

Irish Transatlantic Voyager Garry Crothers Sails Alone For All of Us

20th June 2020 Cruising

If this year had gone anything like according to plan, today (Saturday) would be seeing the SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race from Wicklow getting going, with Afloat.ie providing a list of riders and runners in this column today, while getting…

Where the spirit of sailing lives on, after 300 years and more. Yet only fifty years ago, there were no marinas at all in Crosshaven

Royal Cork Yacht Club’s Example is Inspiring in Cork Harbour’s 50 Years of Progress

13th June 2020 Cork Harbour

Time was when fifty years seemed a long time in the life of any sports organisation, and indeed in life itself. Golden Jubilees were a big deal, to be celebrated with much fanfare. In fact, even 25 years of organisational…

Living history. Michael Creedon’s classc 54-year-old S&S 36 Sarnia being lifted-in at the National YC last weekend

National Yacht Club’s S&S 36 'Sarnia' Keeps Vintage Times Alive

6th June 2020 National YC

The generally accepted view of the 1950s in Ireland is of an economically grim period when everything - including the spirit of the inhabitants - withered in the face of a seemingly permanent financial recession, with desperate emigration the only…

Two-handed superstars. Olympic 49er contenders Sean Waddilove and Robert Dickson (Sailors of the Year 2018) have kept themselves race ready by moving into shared accommodation as the Lockdown was introduced

Double-Handed Sailing May Help Solve Irish Covid Conundrum

30th May 2020 Coronavirus and Boating

If you’re a proper Irish sailing enthusiast and you’re not going crackers at the moment, then there’s something seriously wrong with you. For here we are, in as perfect an early summer for sailing as anyone has seen in a…

That was then…..the conclusion of Scottish Series a year ago, and Dublin Bay’s Andrew Craig (second right) has emerged as overall champion with his J/109 Chimaera and a crew of all the talents

Dublin Bay Sailing Club Guided By James Bond

23rd May 2020 DBSC

How many other front-line sailing administrators anywhere in the world would have noted the February announcement of the postponement of the new James Bond movie’s global premiere in London from early March 2020 away back until November, and immediately realised…

Cometh the hour, cometh the boat….with a weight of just 30 kilos to the 58.97 kilos of the Laser, the easily-managed RS Aero may be just the boat to provide sailing with minimal shoreside inter-action in these restricted times

Irish Sailors Need Flexible Thinking & Tolerance in Their Emergence From Covid-19

16th May 2020 W M Nixon

You would expect the sailing community to be more understanding than most others of the difficulties inherent in setting out any sort of comprehensible and feasible plan for the resumption of life in all its forms as the Covid-19 pandemic…

This could well be the maiden sail of the famous Dorade in 1930, as the inappropriately-dressed group in the cockpit – with Olin Stephens (22) on the helm and his brother Rod (20) beside him -look as though they came for a launch party, and decided to go for a brisk sail as well, even if no-one had brought proper sailing gear - note the slightly bewildered-looking guy on the weather rail wearing a bow tie

Heroic Solo Sailor Gregor McGuckin Revives Memory of Rod Stephens in Howth Fifty Years Ago

8th May 2020 W M Nixon

In Ireland, these days, the name of Rod Stephens is most readily associated with an international award - the Cruising Club of America’s Rod Stephens Trophy for Outstanding Seamanship - for the very good reason that during the past six…