Sailing on Saturday with WM Nixon
Although Friday’s racing was cancelled in the face of heavy winds and the strong possibility of fog in a notably unstable weather phase, it has otherwise been Camelot in Kinsale for the Simple Blue Sovereigns Cup 2023. Any serious rain…
A hundred years ago next Tuesday, June 20th, Conor O'Brien (1880-1952) of Foynes took his departure with some fanfare aboard his 42ft Saoirse from the harbour her skipper preferred to call Dunleary, though most of its citizens saw it as…
It was that noted offshore yachtsman and rail travel enthusiast Vladimir Ilyich Lenin who observed that ten years can go past with no significant history occurring at all, and then suddenly ten years of hectic history can happen in just…
There’s more than a few of us around who well remember the launching of the new 280 nautical miles Dun Laoghaire to Dingle race by the ideas-filled duo of Martin Crotty and Peter Cullen of the National Yacht Club. It…
This weekend sees ancient gaff-rigged and other craft of multiple vintages gathering at Poolbeg Yacht and Boat Club in Ringsend in the heart of Dublin Port, within sight of some of the most modern ships afloat. It’s the 60th Anniversary…
There’s a remarkable inherited experience of staging regattas in Dun Laoghaire, reinforced by the shared skill in running races of appropriate type and length, which comes through from the unrivalled memory bank of what is and isn’t reasonably possible, passed…
Whatever you may think about the historic gun-running by Erskine & Molly Childers’ Asgard into Howth on July 26th 1914, there’s no denying the fact that this was one of the most significant interactions of sailing as a sport with…
Everyone seems to relish the idea of sailing round Ireland. Indeed, such is our appreciation of it that it all seems to mean different things to different people. To start with, how far is it? Time was when you’d be…
It’s an idea whose time first came back in 1884, and yet Dublin Bay Sailing Club remains as timely a concept as it ever was. Its official 2023 Opening Day is at Dun Laoghaire today, Saturday, April 29th, even though…
It’s beginning to look as though University College Dublin is a sailing university with a work and studies problem. As the pressure builds in all departments ashore and afloat, they’re piling on the pace in the team and match racing…
The best news for Ireland thus far in this developing sailing season of 2023 is that, at last weekend’s 400-boat four-day Spi Ouest Easter Regatta at La Trinite in Southern Brittany, Meath’s own Tom Dolan won the hyper-keen Figaro 3…
Recipe for a great day of celebration: Put together a well-earned praise-fest in which the lead speaker is a senior Government Minister and sailing enthusiast of the calibre of Simon Coveney TD. Add in a lively attendance of 270-plus that…
Let us imagine that you are both an enthusiast for Conor O’Brien (1880-1952), the Shannon Estuary’s great pioneering voyager, and that you are also one of those number-crunchers who enjoy calculating on what particular day significant anniversaries will fall in…
If success has many fathers, while failure is an orphan, then Afloat.ie must be one of the most successful media outlets in Ireland. For in recent years, several people have proudly claimed to have been the founder of what is…
That headline may suggest the latest Viking television melodrama. And at times Sailing To Antarctica, this new multi-aspect book of memoirs - written moreover in an Irish sea village with strong links to the Scandinavian sea rovers - brings the…
You could over-analyse the many attractions of a round Ireland cruise. Apart from being a romantic yet manageable act of homage to our island home, it appeals equally to the adventurous - in that you are always outward bound –…