Sailing on Saturday with WM Nixon

The Manx Nobby White Heather is the latest addition to the Irish Old Gaffer fleet, having recently been brought by Gary Lyons to Strangford Lough from Peel in the Isle of Man. To add interest to her sailing, every time you tack White Heather the rig obliges you to dip the main and mizzen yards so that they are always on the lee side of their masts

Port of Dublin Sees Traditional Sail and Modern Sea Transport In Harmony

27th May 2023 W M Nixon

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…

The spirit of the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta and Dublin Bay sailing encapsulated in one vivid image as a historic classic boat puts to sea past the East Pier Lighthouse headed for some rugged racing in the Bay. It is the 2015 VDLR, and the Uffa Fox-designed Jack Tyrrell of Arklow-built Flying 30 Huff of Arklow of 1950 vintage, originally commissioned by Royal St George YC Commodore and IDRA President Douglas Heard, has been brought back - superbly restored – from Dartmouth to her original home port by owner Andrew Thornhill to race the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta every day. Thanks to the continuous post-race up-dating of every set of results, the enthusiasm with which Huff is sailed is to be rewarded with her winning the “Boat of the Regatta” trophy

Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta Continually Changes To Stay The Same

20th May 2023 W M Nixon

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…

Molly Childers at the wheel of Asgard. As a talented helmswoman, she was often in this role. But the disadvantage is that during a sea day of heavy showers, you have to stick at it however unbecoming your sou’wester, while the rest of the crew may have escaped to the dry below until the rain passes over

Genuine Irish Women Sailors Just Get On With It, Without Making A Fuss And Seeking Patronising Support

13th May 2023 W M Nixon

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…

The team to beat – Round Ireland Two-handed Record Holders Cat Hunt and Pam Lee of Greystones

Round Ireland Sailing Records? It’s All a Bit of a Mess

6th May 2023 W M Nixon

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 now all in the mind, yet more real than ever – the “cover” of the online 2023 Dublin Bay Sailing Club Yearbook, produced in conjunction with Afloat.ie

Dublin Bay Sailing Club Progresses Onwards And Upwards In Its 140th Year

29th April 2023 W M Nixon

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…

University College Dublin Sailing Club, BUSA Champions 2023 at Grafham Water, Cambridge – top row (left to right) Triona Hinkson, Kathy Kelly and Cian Lynch, bottom row Liam Glynn, Jack Fahy and Tom Higgins

University College Dublin are the First Irish Team to Win British University Opens in 53 Years

22nd April 2023 W M Nixon

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 difference between having a great start or getting stuffed can be very narrow indeed, but in this instance Tom Dolan has got himself on the right side of the bacon slicer in the hyper-keen Figaro 3 class

Big Tom Dolan & The Top Guns Save It For Sailing In Ireland

15th April 2023 W M Nixon

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…

First major taste of racing success. Donal McClement (right) with the Dognose Trophy in 1959, and (left to right) Royal Munster YC Flag Officers Sam Thompson and Charlie Dwyer, and Donal’s longtime friend and shipmate Dougie Deane

Cork Harbour Sailors Take Us On A Voyage With Donal McClement

8th April 2023 W M Nixon

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…

Paula Marten’s evocative painting of the early stages of the new Saoirse under construction in the Top Shed at Liam Hegarty’s Boatyard in Oldcourt . It will feature in her exhibition in Bushe’s Bar at the Baltimore Wooden Boat Festival from May 26th to 28th 2023

Ireland’s Conor O’Brien Circumnavigation Centenary Celebrations Feel Like Fantasy Fulfilled

1st April 2023 W M Nixon

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…

The First Born: The re-structured new Afloat Magazine 51 years ago in March 1972, with the cover featuring Derek Tughan’s Swan 36 and Des & John Irwin’ s Arpege racing on Belfast Lough. In 2022, with sailing in Ireland lifting successfully out of Covid lockdown, Golden Jubilee celebrations were not of prime importance as Afloat.ie got on with its real work

Spreading The News Ever Wider On Sailing In Ireland Strengthens Afloat.ie’s Key Role

25th March 2023 W M Nixon

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…

Pure Magic in Greenland for the team’s second visit in 2015 – they’d been before, in the Sigma 36 Black Pepper. Fair dos to Erik the Red, that he managed to sell some of this real estate using the name “Greenland”

Blood And Ice – Working, Racing And Voyaging For Ireland

18th March 2023 W M Nixon

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…

The 48ft 1968-built classic Carina (Rives Potts NYYC) on her way to a class win in the 2011 Fastnet Race. She was designed by Jim McCurdy, whose family have connections to Rathlin Island at the other end of Ireland

Round Ireland Yacht Cruise Is “Romantic but Manageable” Challenge

11th March 2023 W M Nixon

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 –…

Mike and Richie Evans new J/99 Snapshot was an instant success with victory in the 2021 Sovereigns Cup in Kinsale

Irish Cruiser-Racers Get Snapshot Of Success As Highlight Of Today’s ICRA Conference in Dun Laoghaire

4th March 2023 W M Nixon

Ever since Fintan Cairns of Dun Laoghaire and the late Jim Donegan of Cork brought the Irish Cruiser-Racer Association into being twenty years ago, ICRA’s Annual Conference & AGM has provided a fascinating overview of the state of play in…

Alfred Mylne lives anew. The modern build classic-style schooner Naema is a contemporary amalgamation of design concepts used by Alfred Mylne in two of his large schooners

Ireland’s Leading Creator Of One-Design Racers Was The Very Scottish Alfred Mylne

25th February 2023 W M Nixon

We’re accustomed to thinking of successful and long-lived local One-Design keelboat classes as being a distinctive feature of Irish sailing. Thus we tend to overlook the fact that one particular Scottish designer created more of these Irish boats than anyone…

Valentine’s Day with a difference – the new-build of Conor O’Brien’s global pioneering Saoirse steps out in style under sail for the first time at Baltimore on Tuesday February 14th 2023

Conor O’Brien’s Pioneering Saoirse Circumnavigation Centenary Will Be Honoured by Irish Cruising

18th February 2023 W M Nixon

The magnificent pioneering voyage round the world south of the Great Capes in 1923-1925 by Conor O’Brien (1880-1952) of Foynes, sailing his new-built engine-less 42ft Baltimore ketch Saoirse, was of such heroic proportions that any attempts at a re-enactment to…

“We’re on our way….” Eve McMahon after clinching Gold in mid-July 2022 in the Youth Worlds at the Hague in The Netherlands

Eve McMahon is 'Irish Sailor of the Year 2022'

11th February 2023 W M Nixon

Eve McMahon is “Irish Sailor of the Year 2022”, making it into the top national position for the second successive year after the ILCA 6 sailor’s international performance was of such a standard that she even managed to better her…