Sailing on Saturday with WM Nixon
There’s nothing that really compares with the annual Rolex Sydney Hobart Race. While most of the more-populated parts of the world in the Northern Hemisphere are in their midwinter shutdown, somnolent and sluglike in a festival of consumer excess, away…
The recreational marine industry is a demanding trade. Your customers buy boats for pleasure, so they assume it’s a fun business to work in. Thus there’s no lack of potential boat designers and builders to be found among the children…
The season is upon us for goodwill and dreams of very special gifts. And for many Irish sailors, the dream Christmas present would be an elegantly classic or solidly traditional wooden boat, with all maintenance and running costs somehow covered…
It’s that time of year again. Deciding on la crème de la crème is never easy. And in a vehicle sport like sailing where so many elements beyond athletic ability and the capacity for quick thinking are involved, it can…
Things are on the move again. There’s a buzz in the air. W M Nixon anticipates the sailing possibilities for 2016 in a fixtures list so diverse that he reckons that anyone who thinks they know everything that’s going on…
The Irish Cruiser-Racing Association’s (ICRA) Annual Conference has now been moved to a different time-frame, scheduled for Saturday 5th March 2016 in Limerick. But with sailing folk all agog to hear the announcement of the ICRA Boat of the Year…
Anyone with whatever you like in the way of a boat and a selection of sundry sails to power her along can have a season of pleasant memories - provided there’s a summer of reliably good weather. It takes an…
Ireland’s Individuality In Boats Is Our Answer To The World’s Uniformity
7th November 2015 W M Nixon
Located on the fringes of Europe and set in challenging seas, Ireland does not offer an ideal setup for large-output series-production of recreational boats. We lack the economies of scale which are conferred on giant production companies in the crowded…
With a disappointing showing by the Irish squad in the pre-Olympic Regatta in Rio in August, hopes are not high for our performance in the 2016 Sailing Olympics at this light wind city venue, which has already been the subject…
The Afloat.ie website, which is ranked by Google as Ireland’s leading source for the provision of a broad range of recreational and commercial maritime information, news and comment, has been completely updated in recent weeks. Yet though it has acquired…
W M Nixon takes a look back at last weekend’s All Ireland Championship with some thoughts on the unique atmosphere around Dun Laoghaire Harbour on a busy sailing weekend, while giving us an insight into the hugely successful sailing partnership…
The Irish Championship Of Sailing Champions Is More Important Than We Might Think
3rd October 2015 W M Nixon
This weekend’s two-day All-Ireland Sailing Championship at the National Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire, racing boats of the ISA J/80 SailFleet flotilla, is an easy target for facile criticism. Perhaps because it tries to do so much in the space…
We may be an island nation, but are we a maritime people in our outlook and way of life? It could be reasonably argued that we most definitely aren’t. On last night’s Seascapes, the maritime programme on RTE Radio 1,…
As we near the end of the traditional sailing season, inevitably there’ll be heart-searching among boat owners as to the success and value obtained from their summer afloat – can they really justify the expense of continuing to keep a…
Learn To Win The Fastnet Race: Irish Offshore Sailing School Knows How
12th September 2015 W M Nixon
How would you like to undertake an intense course of guaranteed Irish offshore racing training? Start as an absolute beginner on a strange boat in April next year. Dedicate yourself to it. Then by the end of June, the boat…
Ireland is a country of seaways, and waterways which are dominated by the majestic River Shannon. On our island, you can never be more than sixty miles from the nearest navigable bit of sea. Add in the myriad of inland…
