Sailing on Saturday with WM Nixon

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 W M Nixon

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 W M Nixon

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…

It would only take some green jerseys and a translation of the name as gaeilge to make this new JPK 11.80 an ideal GAA entrant in the SSE Renewables Round Ireland race on August 22nd, as the JPK boats are built in the proudly Celtic seaport of Lorient.

The GAA Should Have at Least One Entry in the Round Ireland Yacht Race

2nd May 2020 W M Nixon

If you’re not having unusually colourful dreams in these weird times, then you’re the exception. Everyone else is. I woke up the other morning totally exhausted, and little wonder. For as the foggy mind came into focus, all recollections were…

Monday 10th August 1987, and the Dubois 40 Irish Independent arrives at the Fastnet Rock, on her way to winning the Fastnet Race overall, and becoming top scorer for Ireland in the Admiral’s Cup.

The Fastnet Race Centenary is in Five Years – How Well Has Ireland Scored Since 1925?

25th April 2020 W M Nixon

In 2025, the Centenary of the RORC Fastnet Race – arguably the world’s most famous offshore challenge – will be sailed. Until recently, it would have seemed a bit odd to be focusing on a Centenary all of five years…

The ultra champion – Paul O’Higgins’ JPK 10.80 Rockabill VI is currently ICRA Boat of the Year, Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Champion, ISORA Champion and Calves Week Champion, while he is Afloat.ie/Irish Sailing “Sailor of the Year”. If the tentative proposal to resume sailing with the ISORA Dublin Bay to Cork Harbour Race at the later date of Friday, July 31st is implemented, Rockabill VI and her crew could be campaigning almost continually from July 31st until the conclusion of the ICRA Nationals in the Wave Regatta at Howth from September 11th to 13th

New Date for Dublin Bay-Cork Harbour Race Brings Back Memories of Legendary Schooner America

17th April 2020 W M Nixon

The postponed date of Friday, July 31st is being considered as a feasible time to think of starting the ISORA-organised 160-mile Dublin Bay to Cork Harbour Race, which was originally planned for July 9th to link this summer’s celebration of…

The start of a very special relationship. Denis Doyle’s Moonduster approaches the finish of the 1982 Round Ireland Race to take line honours, a new course record, and the handicap win. Today’s Round Ireland crews, faced with a two month postponement of the start date, will be asking: “What would The Doyler do?”

Round Ireland Yacht Race’s New Date Emphasises its National Sailing Significance

11th April 2020 W M Nixon

If we needed a reminder of the central role which the biennial Round Ireland Yacht Race from Wicklow has grown into within Irish sailing and in the global offshore racing context during its 40 years and 20 editions, then the…

The classic stem shape exemplified by Tom Crosbie’s International 8 Metre If off Cobh in 1960. Designed and built by Bjarne Aas in Norway in 1939, the 49ft If was unusual for her class in having full standing headroom

Take a Bow! How Should Yachts Really Begin & End?

4th April 2020 W M Nixon

The accepted and popular shapes of boats and yachts in different ages changes so much that you’d be forgiven for thinking that their functions also change completely to suit the requirements of each new era. Of course, design development, measurement…

The yachts of the 1720-founded Water Club of the Harbour of Cork – the predecessor of the Royal Cork Yacht Club – as recorded on fleet manoeuvres by Dutch artist Peter Monamy in 1738. The Royal Cork YC’s unique collection of maritime art and memorabilia – some of it 300 years old – is an eloquent testimony to the continuity and quality of sailing enthusiasm in Cork Harbour.

Irish Sailing Life in the Time of Suspended Animation

27th March 2020 W M Nixon

The Covid-19-related cancellation of the pillar events planned for July in the Royal Cork Yacht Club’s Tricentenary Celebrations has had an inexorable inevitability about it for the last ten days and more. But a decision of such magnitude needed to…

Sailor of the Year Paul O’Higgins aboard his JPK 10.80 Rockabill VI in Dingle Harbour after being declared overall winner and successful title defender of the National YC’s Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race 2019

Paul O’Higgins of Royal Irish Yacht Club is the New “Sailor of the Year”

21st March 2020 W M Nixon

The potent Dun Laoghaire-based JPK 10.80 Rockabill VI may now have four very busy seasons – both inshore and offshore - in her sailing CV. But the years have not dulled her performance and competitiveness, and in 2019 she had…

“Don’t go down the mine daddy, there’s plenty of coal in the yard…..” The BH41 Silk (Jocelyn Waller, Lough Derg YC) takes soundings in the Solent. As the helmsman is Gordon Maguire, any further comment can only come from sailors of equal stature.

Ireland’s Sailing Sport is No Laughing Matter

16th March 2020 W M Nixon

When a country is brooding under the gloom of a developing and lethal global pandemic, you’d have thought that something mildly light-hearted such as the weekend’s Sailing on Saturday creation of a virtual launch party at the Royal Irish Yacht…

Racing certainty? The 1971-vintage S&S 49 Hiro Maru (Hiro Nakajima) crossing the finish line at the Royal Yacht Squadron in Cowes to win Class 3 in the 2019 Transatlantic Race. Hiro Maru is currently the senior entry in the SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race 2020, and the favourite to be the first winner of the Maybird Mast Trophy for the oldest boat to complete the course, while also being well in the reckoning for other honours.

Round Ireland Yacht Race 2020 - Virtual Launch Party Goes Ahead at Royal Irish YC

13th March 2020 W M Nixon

There’s a rumour going around about the cancellation of this week’s traditional Dublin launch in the Royal Irish Yacht Club of the biennial SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race, due to start from Wicklow Sailing Club on June 20th. The rumour…

Making sailing fun again – the user-friendly Sun Fast 3300 provides maximum sport for best-utilised effort as the boat moves over rather than through the water.

Launch of New Jeanneau Sun Fast 3300 by MGM Boats Will Make Irish Sailing Fun Again

6th March 2020 W M Nixon

We were having one of those brainstorming discussions the other day about how best to promote sailing in Ireland, when some still small voice suggested that we were going at the challenge entirely the wrong way. We were thinking in…

Strangford village’s own-build St Ayle’s Skiff. A sister-ship is to be built in Kilrush by Seol Sionna, builders and owners of the gaff cutter Sally O’Keeffe

Keeping Ireland’s Sailing & Boating Communities in Good Health is Always Work in Progress

28th February 2020 W M Nixon

This weekend two years ago, Storm Emma was sweeping Ireland, with onshore hurricane-force winds attacking much of the East Coast and wrecking a shed on Howth’s East Pier where, for decades, boats of the 1898-founded Howth Seventeen Foot class had…

A long way from Portmarnock and early seagoing experience on Asgard – Darren Nagle’s award-winning Chantey V in the majestic anchorage of Puffin Bay in Alaska

David Beattie Takes Over as Irish Cruising Club Commodore

22nd February 2020 W M Nixon

The Irish Cruising Club celebrated the completion of its successful 90th year at its Annual General Meeting in the Royal Irish YC in Dun Laoghaire last night and saw a significant change of the watch with Stanton Adair of Belfast…