Sailing on Saturday with WM Nixon

At the double. Anthony O'Leary of Crosshaven and Annalise Murphy of Dun Laoghaire are the only contenders to be Afloat.ie "Sailors of the Year" twice – himself in 2010 and 2014, and herself in 2012 and 2016

Afloat.ie's "Sailor of the Year" Celebrates Twenty-Five Years

5th February 2021 W M Nixon

In these long-lived times, a Silver Jubilee is not what it used to be in an era when Golden Jubilees, Centenaries, Tricentenaries and whatever you're having yourself are cascading around us in an almost continuous nostalgia-fest. Nevertheless the healthy Quarter…

"Our jewel and darling Dublin…." Far from being seen as a problem, the intertwining of the city, port and sea should be thought of as something to cherish and develop

Dublin Port's Future Lines of Development Affect Us All

30th January 2021 W M Nixon

Dublin and its Port. The City and the Sea. The Culture and the Commerce. The Buzz and the Business. The sense of real working and creative life, with the romance of the ocean and the hint of salty far horizons,…

Laser 4.7 Euro Championship 2019 underway in Belgium. The classic Laser has served sailing well – the hull design may have been in existence for more than fifty years, yet it still looks very right no matter which of the three rig options you choose.

Royal St George & National Yacht Clubs' Laser 4.7 Youth Worlds 2021 Battle on Despite Post-Pandemic Uncertainties

23rd January 2021 W M Nixon

At one stage last Autumn, it looked for a week or two as though Irish venues might be hosting no less than five World Championships for dinghy classes during the three week period between the July 24th and August 14th…

Conor Doyle's xP50 Freya from Kinsale is currently the largest entrant for the Volvo Dun Laoghaire-Dingle Race on June 9th. She is seen here winning the Kinsale-Monkstown Race in a record two hours, but the course record she challenges in the race to Dingle was set by a 94-footer, Mick Cottter's Windfall in 2019

National Yacht Club's Volvo Dun Laoghaire-Dingle Race 2021 Should Get Us Going Again

16th January 2021 W M Nixon

It's getting to be like a game of skittles in the planned lineup of high-profile 2021 events which everybody - way back in the dark depths of earlier pandemic lockdowns – thought would surely come to pass in the remote…

Irish sailing in 2020 involved carefully monitored events with limited numbers. Deprived of properly celebrating their Quarter Millennium as long planned, Lough Ree YC ran a special regatta in late August which – despite numbers in the club compound being limited to 200 with strict social distancing in the clubhouse – produced excellent racing, with one of the stars being Ben Graf, who went on to become September's Junior Sailor of the Month. Here, there's crisp action at the weather mark for the leading Shannon One Designs, which in 2022 will be celebrating their Centenary

Afloat Sailors of the Month 2020 Kept Our Sport Going Through Adversity

9th January 2021 W M Nixon

For sure, the pandemic-plagued year of 2020 - with its stop-start framework of activity afloat and ashore - was something beyond most sailors' experience. Yet ours is nothing if not a can-do sport. And while some sailing enthusiasts – particularly…

Dublin Bay - playground, workspace, living area and complex ecosystem. With Dublin Port to the left and Dun Laoghaire Harbour on right, the sporting challenges of best utilising Dublin Bay's uniquely balanced potential have been successfully met by Dublin Bay Sailing Club

Dublin Bay SC is Mitsubishi Motors 'Sailing Club of the Year' 2021

2nd January 2021 W M Nixon

Dublin Bay Sailing Club's recognition today as the Mitsubishi Motors "Sailing Club of the Year" 2021 on the strength of achieving a remarkably full programme in 2020 when Pandemic Regulations permitted is well merited. Yet it's only the second time…

The sort of days which will return "when all this is past". The Doug Peterson-designed Contessa 35 Witchcraft of Howth racing in ISORA Week 1991 in Howth

Happy Irish Sailing Days May Not Be Here Again For a While, But We Can Hope…

26th December 2020 W M Nixon

Our header photo is one whose use had not been anticipated for at least another month, and hopefully not at all. For it was optimistically expected that by late January, we'd have evidence the vaccines were beginning to work, with…

The National YC's biennial Volvo Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race, currently scheduled for June 9th 2021, could become symbolic of the emergence from pandemic. The start of 2019's race shows overall winner Paul O'Higgin's JPK 10.80 Rockabill VI (left) showing briefly ahead of Mick Cotter's 94ft line honours winner and new course record-setter Windfall

Irish Sailing Fixtures for 2021? The Best Plan is to Keep Planning

19th December 2020 W M Nixon

In normal times, the yearly Irish sailing fixtures list is a reasonably harmonious programme based around annual or biennial pillar events of various types and sizes, an ongoing succession of regattas and championships which slot together in a reasonably meaningful…

Sunshine at sea, clouds over the land – the season of 2020 is defined at the National Yacht Cub's Sesquicentennial Regatta in Dublin Bay on September 5th, with Flying Fifteen Class Captain Neil Colin (DMYC) racing Ffuzzy with Margaret Casey

Irish Sailing Season of 2020? Despite Everything, There Definitely Was One

5th December 2020 W M Nixon

It would be needlessly painful to look back at the Afloat.ie features of a year and more ago anticipating the coming sailing season of 2020. They exuded optimism, anticipation, energy and enthusiasm for the approaching twelve months. They looked forward…

Blast from the past…..Northele starring in the Crosshaven Classics Regatta 2009 on the cover of Afloat Magazine March/April 2010. At the time, Anthony and Sally O'Leary had already quietly decided that they hoped to own her one day, but the family had another decade of successful competitive sailing at home and abroad before they made the move

Crosshaven Regeneration of Classic Yacht Northele is a Special Mission for Family, Friends & Shipmates

28th November 2020 W M Nixon

When Anthony and Sally O'Leary of Crosshaven quietly decided that some day they were going to make the classic 50ft 1949-vintage sloop Northele a member of their extended sailing family, it was a sort of Breakfast Epiphany. The boat had…

The National Yacht Club today. At the heart of the modern complex is the building constructed as the Kingstown Royal Harbour Boat Club 150 years ago

National Yacht Club's History is the Story of 150 Years of Ireland Through a Special Perspective

21st November 2020 W M Nixon

Most yacht and sailing clubs begin with a group of like-minded friends sailing and racing - sometimes together, sometimes against each other - until activity reaches such a level that some sort of organisation is required, and in time it's…

Catherine Hunt and Pamela Lee of Greystones aboard Iarracht Maigeanta. Their new double-handed Round Ireland Time has added significance when set in the full historic framework

Round Ireland Sailing Record by Pamela Lee & Catherine Hunt Just Gets Better & Better

14th November 2020 W M Nixon

The Round Ireland Sailing Record is a bit like Ireland herself. It's complicated by Partition. It's a case of there being not one but two sets of records, two elephants in two rooms. But for interested parties, the relevant elephant…

Up, up and away….Jeremy Bayou's Charal was one of the first of the latest generation of IMOCA 60s to be launched, thereby avoiding many of the production delays which the pandemic caused for campaigns on a later time-scale. Having won the Vendee Artique Race in July, Charal is seen as a leading contender in the 24,000 mile Vendee Globe Race, which starts tomorrow at Les Sables d'Olonne

Will it Be Just 60 Days for Flying New IMOCA 60s in Vendee Globe Circuit?

7th November 2020 W M Nixon

Make no splash, leave no trace, tame the turbulence, and THEN JUST FLY…..That's the thinking which underlines the very latest manifestations of the IMOCA 60, which are expected to lead the fleet of 33 sailing machines in the 24,296 miles…

Thanks to main support sponsors Advens Cybersecurity, Thomas Ruyant's new Marcus Hutchinson-managed Vendee Globe-entered IMOCA 60 is providing major publicity for the not-for-profit social organisation LinkedOut

Marcus Hutchinson of Kinsale & Howth in the Thick of it in Vendee Globe Management

31st October 2020 W M Nixon

Marcus Hutchinson has been having a good Autumn in his role as a sort of benign marine Svengali with an Irish flavour, operating largely behind the scenes at the sharp end of the French big-time offshore racing scene. But it…

Silver Service in a different world….back in the still relatively carefree times of early January, just for a spot of fun Olympic Sailing Silver Medallist Annalise Murphy took Olympic 5,000 Metre Silver Medallist Sonia O'Sullivan for a sail in the Laser in Melbourne

Ireland's High Performance & Olympic Sailors: The Ultimate Self-Isolating Bubble

24th October 2020 W M Nixon

The process of intense training, endlessly learning, and continually practising in the hope and expectation of improving your game does not come easily to many Irish sailors. The fact of our being an island nation, and having a very long…

Handsome is as handsome does – the uncompromising Lombard 45 Pata Negra – used for several Howth YC successes – has been chartered by ISORA's Andrew Hall of Pwllheli for today's (Saturday) 41st Rolex Middle Sea Race from Malta

High Profile Sailing Events like the Rolex Middle Sea Race Need to Become Invisible if Sailing is to Continue Through Pandemic

17th October 2020 Middle Sea Race

People have been unobtrusively getting on with sailing in many places during the pandemic, determinedly maintaining social distance afloat and ashore, reducing their interaction with outsiders to such a minimum it's almost non-existent, and doing it all thoughtfully, with properly-located…