Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

It’s that time of year again. Deciding on la crème de la crème is never easy. And in a vehicle sport like sailing where so many elements beyond athletic ability and the capacity for quick thinking are involved, it can…

I meet a lot of people as a maritime journalist, people who do and have done amazing things in the maritime sector, but meeting Ireland’s only ‘Flying Angel’ was particularly interesting. A nice chap whom I realised that I had…

Things are on the move again. There’s a buzz in the air. W M Nixon anticipates the sailing possibilities for 2016 in a fixtures list so diverse that he reckons that anyone who thinks they know everything that’s going on…

I spent last Sunday morning, under a blue sky, with a steady breeze, watching high-tech yachts racing. Impressively beating to the weather mark, reaching and running downwind on a triangle/sausage/triangle course, with a couple of incidents to test the equanimity…

The Irish Cruiser-Racing Association’s (ICRA) Annual Conference has now been moved to a different time-frame, scheduled for Saturday 5th March 2016 in Limerick. But with sailing folk all agog to hear the announcement of the ICRA Boat of the Year…

Athy is not really a maritime town in the coastal sense of that description. Its marine connection is, essentially, the Grand Canal on Ireland's inland waterways linking Dublin to Limerick and which was extended to Athy in 1791 when it took…

Anyone with whatever you like in the way of a boat and a selection of sundry sails to power her along can have a season of pleasant memories - provided there’s a summer of reliably good weather. It takes an…

The first time I sailed the Round Ireland Yacht Race was in 1986 aboard Philips Innovator. That was a time when maxi yachts were not a feature of Irish waters. Innovator had sailed the Whitbread Round the World Race and…

Located on the fringes of Europe and set in challenging seas, Ireland does not offer an ideal setup for large-output series-production of recreational boats. We lack the economies of scale which are conferred on giant production companies in the crowded…

There is always something unusual in the sea, a phrase I have heard very often from marine scientists and which I have been known to utter myself. It comes to my mind time and again when I am preparing this…

I have known Justin Slattery and followed his career for many years as he rose to become one of the top international sailing stars, the winner now of two Volvo Ocean Races in the toughest position on a racing boat,…

With a disappointing showing by the Irish squad in the pre-Olympic Regatta in Rio in August, hopes are not high for our performance in the 2016 Sailing Olympics at this light wind city venue, which has already been the subject…

Youghal, on the East Cork coastline, was once the biggest Irish port trading with Britain. It has a long and proud maritime history, with many men serving at sea in the naval and merchant marine. The current edition of THIS…

The Afloat.ie website, which is ranked by Google as Ireland’s leading source for the provision of a broad range of recreational and commercial maritime information, news and comment, has been completely updated in recent weeks. Yet though it has acquired…

I was doing the RTE television commentary at the start of the 2005 Tall Ships Races from Waterford. Three Irish tall ships led the international fleet ASGARD II, JEANIE JOHNSTON and DUNBRODY, with the State’s vessel, ASGARD, accorded the honour…

W M Nixon takes a look back at last weekend’s All Ireland Championship with some thoughts on the unique atmosphere around Dun Laoghaire Harbour on a busy sailing weekend, while giving us an insight into the hugely successful sailing partnership…