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.
Trading Ketch Ilen to Make Foynes Her Base as 2021 Programme Gets Under Way in May
14th April 2021 Ilen
Global circumnavigator and sailing ship designer Conor O’Brien (1880-1952) inevitably saw his most noted vessels, the 42ft world-girdler Saoirse and the 56ft trading ketch Ilen, being closely associated by the rest of the world with their birthplace in Baltimore. But…
When the Duke of Edinburgh died aged 99 on Friday, it took a while before the hundreds of public appreciations of his remarkable life began to mention the fact that sailing played a very important role in it. Yet although…
Welcome to Nautical Limbo Land. This weekend may see the annual start-of-season lift-ins – with masked-up socially-distanced protocols - at the Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club, the National YC, and the Royal St George Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire. But…
Would the REAL Fastnet Race Course Records Please Stand Up & Salute Like Everyone Else……
7th April 2021 Fastnet
Well done to the MOD 70 PowerPlay on almost managing to make the 24 hours for a Fastnet Race course finishing at Plymouth. But we'd suggest in all modesty (we're tops for it) that what they were sailing was NOT…
Every so often a photo flashes across the screen, its origins unknown and its destination a mystery, yet its reality is abundantly clear. This header pic is one such. I've no idea how it came to pop up, or who…
The learned word for the study of flags is "vexillology". Had we been told that it shares its roots with "vexation", it wouldn't have surprised us at all, living as we do just down the road from a region where…
How quickly can we hope to return to the carefree style of sailing sociability which reflects the mood displayed above, as seen in the officially-accredited Sporting & Cultural Mission from Howth Yacht Club on its traditional biennial visit to the…
Dublin Bay Old Gaffers Association invites you to join their next Zoom session, which will be on The Building of Howth Harbour and presented by Rob Goodbody on Thursday, 8th April at 20:00hrs. The present Howth Harbour celebrated its Bicentenary…
New International Feasibility Studies Institute in Ireland Will Focus On The Growing Maritime Sector
1st April 2021 News Update
A secretive organisation known as SFA (the Studying Feasibility Alliance) is working behind the scenes to encourage the establishment of a professional body for one of the fastest-growing business sectors in the marine and other spheres in Ireland, the lucrative…
Suez Canal Blockage? New Container Pyramid Would Add to Egypt’s Historic Tourist Attractions
29th March 2021 Ports & Shipping
As the old business school saying has it, there are no problems - there are only fresh opportunities. The acute problem of the relatively rare blockage of the Suez Canal, with the salvors of the 400m Ever Given faced with…
Suez Canal Blockage - Worldwide Concern Leads to Experimentation on English Canal
28th March 2021 Inland Waterways
While the Evergreen-owned container ship blocking the Suez Canal may be the biggest ship of her kind in the world, canal sailors from many countries have been developing theories as to how best she might be moved, and two Narrowboat…
The impression conveyed in the image above of good-humoured sport afloat at the first regatta from the new harbour of Kingstown on July 22nd 1828 is so lively that today we easily forgive the relatively unskilled work of the artist,…
When Lou Grade produced the unsuccessful and ridiculously expensive movie Raise the Titanic, he said afterwards that it would have cost less to lower the Atlantic. Afloat.ie’s suggestion for the Ever Given blocked in the Suez Canal is the opposite.…
Limerick's Ketch Ilen Prepares for Kingship Research & Training Programme in Shannon Estuary
25th March 2021 Ilen
The good ship Ilen, the 56ft Trading Ketch of Limerick, has been in the slipway cradle at Liam Hegarty's boatyard in Oldcourt upriver of Baltimore in West Cork this week, enjoying the relatively dry weather and the attention of her…
Eccentric boat designer O'Brien Kennedy's picaresque life story attracted fascinated attention when we ran a Sailing on Saturday feature on it ten days ago. But for Professor Felix Muller of Berlin, it was like stumbling on an unexpected oasis in…
It was exactly fourteen months ago – precisely on January 21st 2020 – that we featured the intriguing story of how Stephanie Lyons of Kildare had come to be in a role of active sailing prominence in Australia via training…
Irish Sea Offshore Racing Association (ISORA) Has Golden Jubilee This Year
20th March 2021 W M Nixon
On Sunday, August 29th 1971, a group of offshore devotees who had campaigned the previous day's annual cross-channel Abersoch-Howth Race for the James C Eadie Cup gathered in the bar of Howth Yacht Club and gave some purpose to their…
O'Brien Kennedy: IDRA 14s' 75th Focuses Fresh Light on Eccentric Irish Sailing Dinghy Designer
13th March 2021 IDRA 14
You know how it is. You're wondering if the slightly odd flavour of the evening cuppa is a hint of the imminence of the C-Monster's indicator of taste-loss. All this, too, just as it's increasingly clear that your already-proposed personal…
A busy ship, the old saying goes, is a happy ship. And a sailor in enforced idleness can be – at the very least - one decidedly grumpy so-and-so. Thus the multiple limitations of pandemic lockdowns have posed a challenge…
Conor O'Brien's Circumnavigation Centenary at Dun Laoghaire is Already on Horizon
6th March 2021 W M Nixon
Ireland's Conor O'Brien was the first amateur skipper to circumnavigate the globe by the classic sailing ship route south of the great Capes, running down his easting in the big winds of the Great Southern Ocean which blow unhindered round…
