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Displaying items by tag: James Gilna

A new exhibition of classic racing boat paintings by Afloat.ie reader James Gilna opens today (Wednesday 18 September) at the National Maritime Museum in Dun Laoghaire.

And the artist himself will be in attendance to discuss the works included in The Windward Mark from 5.30pm this Friday 20 September as part of Culture Night activities nationwide.

Paintings in the exhibition, which runs until Sunday 20 October, feature classic sailboats such as the Dublin Bay 21s and Howth 17s racing at Kingstown Harbour and in various locations around the Irish Sea.

A maritime artist based in Dublin, James Gilna is an alumnus of Dun Laoghaire School of Art and Design and the National College of Art and Design. He also sails and races Erica, his classic gaff rigged boat which was designed in 1897.

Earlier this year, Gilna tipped us to the auction of a painting by renowned maritime artist Montague Dawson of a boat supposedly racing on Lough Derg.

The events depicted in the painting were subsequently questioned by a Lough Derg yachting historian, who raised a number of points where Dawson may have taken artistic licence with his work.

William M Nixon has been writing about sailing in Ireland and internationally for many years, with his work appearing in leading sailing publications on both sides of the Atlantic. He has been a regular sailing columnist for four decades with national newspapers in Dublin, and has had several sailing books published in Ireland, the UK, and the US. An active sailor, he has owned a number of boats ranging from a Mirror dinghy to a Contessa 35 cruiser-racer, and has been directly involved in building and campaigning two offshore racers. His cruising experience ranges from Iceland to Spain as well as the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, and he has raced three times in both the Fastnet and Round Ireland Races, in addition to sailing on two round Ireland records. A member for ten years of the Council of the Irish Yachting Association (now the Irish Sailing Association), he has been writing for, and at times editing, Ireland's national sailing magazine since its earliest version more than forty years ago