WM Nixon
William M Nixon has been writing about sailing in Ireland for many years in print and online, and his work has appeared internationally in magazines and books. His own experience ranges from club sailing to international offshore events, and he has cruised extensively under sail, often in his own boats which have ranged in size from an 11ft dinghy to a 35ft cruiser-racer. He has also been involved in the administration of several sailing organisations.
Dublin Bay Cruisers 3 Make Imaginative Use of Existing Programme to Create Class Championship
16th September 2021 DBSC
Success in sailing's organisational development can sometimes be found in seeing previously "invisible" underlying patterns in the existing fixtures list, and a talent for doing this has added value as we try to optimise the amount of sailing available while…
Shaking off the Saltees: 22ft Round Ireland Voyager Moonshine Finally Making Westing for Kinsale
15th September 2021 Round Ireland Speed Record
With the light winds all over the place and sometimes nowhere at all, round Ireland voyagers Eoin Keyes and Leonie Conway with the little Hurley 22 Moonshine have been having an ultra-frustrating time in getting past the Saltee Islands off…
Limerick’s Peter Lawless & 41ft Waxwing Have Resumed Southward Passage in Global Challenge
15th September 2021 Solo Sailing
After a three day, no-shore-contact stopover at anchor off Portimao in southern Portugal to sort rudder and electronics problems, Limerick’s Peter Lawless (52) is southward bound again in his Rival 41 Waxwing in his bid to be the first Irishman…
Round Ireland Hurley 22 Struggles with Light Winds & Adverse Tides Around Tuskar Rock
14th September 2021 Round Ireland Speed Record
While Tom Dolan was bringing joy to Irish sailors by leading the Figaro fleet round the Fastnet Rock, at the other end of the south coast of Ireland it was being proved yet again that getting past the Fastnet is…
Kenmare's Customised Red Bay Stormforce 1450 RIB Brings the Skelligs Within Easy Reach
14th September 2021 RIBs
Way back in the dim and distant OtherTime, back in the vaguely-remembered May of last year when we still hadn't really grasped how our lives had been totally pandemically changed, we ran a story about how super-host John Brennan of…
"We'd some grand spinnaker work. And there was some very good windward racing too. The only trouble is, it was sometimes all happening on the same leg of the course…." Even in an area of clear winds such as you…
Smallest Round Ireland Non-Stop Under Sail? 22-Footer From Kinsale on Track to Complete Challenge
13th September 2021 Round Ireland Speed Record
The Hurley 22 – series-produced in considerable numbers between 1966 and 1975 to an Ian Anderson design by Plymouth boatbuilder George Hurley, who was of distantly Irish descent – is still rightly seen as an able little boat, with pleasant…
The three 1903 Dublin Bay 21s newy-restored for Hal Sisk and Fionan de Barra by Steve Morris and his team in Kilrush Boatyard have been back in Dun Laoghaire for six weeks now. But in the late season’s perverse weather, there…
Sailing's Developing Trends in Ireland Are Difficult to Clarify in Rapidly Accelerating Late-Season Programme
11th September 2021 W M Nixon
You might say it's unnatural. Normally at this time of year, we'll be talking of the evenings and the season closing in together to facilitate a gently easing pace. But last weekend in Cork, they seemed to have so many…
Racing Dublin’s Fish Catch Through the Royal Irish Yacht Club Regatta's Finish Line
9th September 2021 Royal Irish Yacht Club
One of the photos released in connection with tomorrow (Friday) evening’s Royal Irish YC 190th Anniversary Pursuit Race is a story in itself. For although it looks like a close finish to a Dublin Bay regatta race around 150 years…
Restored Dublin Bay 21s Will Bring History Alive in Howth on Sunday
9th September 2021 Dublin Bay 21
In times past before they ceased racing in 1986, the 1903-founded Dublin Bay 21s were regular participants in regattas at Howth. With three of the boats newly-restored under the class revival project inspired by Fionan de Barra and Hal Sisk,…
In the exceptionally challenging sailing of the 620-mile third stage of the Figaro Solo 2021, Tom Dolan on Smurfit Kappa-Kingspan was lying eighth as he rounded the Bishop Rock at the western point of the Isles of Scilly at 1400…
"The Books Stops Here" for Royal Cork's Successful Senior & Junior Teams
7th September 2021 Team Racing
It has been a frenetically busy weekend on Cork Harbour with crowded classic events such as the Cobh-Blackrock Race and other fixtures of various levels of association with the 75th Anniversary of the Naval Service. Yet somehow the time and…
When Liam Burke’s interesting Farr 31 Tribal from Galway Bay SC became the new West of Ireland champion in racing the WIORA series with Tralee Bay SC at Fenit recently, it marked the latest successful stage in the Tribal Youth…
It was billed as the Squib Easterns. But in terms of results spread, it was more like an All-Ireland, with five different clubs listed for the first ten boats in a very representative fleet of 18 starters from many sailing…
It’s arguably the oldest surviving inter-provincial sailing contest in Ireland. For although once upon a time there was an annual race for the Elwood Salver between Trinity College Dublin and Queen’s University Belfast which reputedly dated back to the 1930s…
Ireland's Sailing is Healthy. It's the Shore Time That Causes Problems…
4th September 2021 W M Nixon
Let's hear it for coloured sails. On a grey day on a grey bay, every last spinnaker or asymmetric or gennaker or whatever with a splash of colour was more than welcome yesterday morning (Friday) to help bring the grimly…
Howth Joins Royal Cork to Provide Two Irish Crews in New York Yacht Club Invitational Next Week
1st September 2021 New York Invitational Cup
Although it has only been running for seven years, the New York Yacht Club’s annual inter-club Invitational Event at Newport, Rhode Island has become one of the hottest tickets in international sailing. And since they moved the boat type up…
So much happened so quickly in Galway Bay SC’s 46-boat Lambs Week cruise to the Aran islands and Connemara (as reported in Afloat.ie) that it took a day or two for a more formal presentation to take place with the…
Cork Harbour's Bid to Stage the America's Cup: An Informed International Perspective
31st August 2021 America's Cup
The sailing communities in Cork and in Ireland generally are assessing and modifying their responses towards Cork Harbour’s developing and very active proposal to stage the America’s Cup. It is a hugely complex subject and a massive and costly project,…
