Sailing on Saturday with WM Nixon
#cruiserracing – For the ordinary participant, sailing events just seem to happen. All they have to do personally is simply turn up, and get involved each year in a programme which somehow fits together both locally and nationally. But a…
#yachtclubs – The antiquity of Irish recreational sailing is beyond dispute, even if arguments arise as to when it started, and whether or not the Royal Cork YC really is the world's oldest club in its descent from the Water…
#chillout – As the sailing community ponders the global fall-off in casual sailing numbers, leading sailor Ken Read reckons that one of the reasons is because our sport is getting too serious. He says it's time for most sailors to…
#historicboats – These days we're told of the growing disparity between the economic recovery of Ireland's eastern region, and the relative economic stagnation of some of the rest of the country. But W M Nixon suggests that, for one part…
Is Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) The Most Effective Sailing Organisation in the World?
14th March 2014 W M Nixon
#dbsc – Ireland's largest yacht racing organisation is Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC), which administers the regular weekly programme for the entire Dun Laoghaire fleet. It has been such an accepted part of sailing's furniture for so long that it…
#boatsforsale – Time was when shrewd boat buyers went into action in the Autumn, when the post-summer downturn in enthusiasm might just make the used dreamboat affordable with a bargain end-of-season price. But these days, when most of us are…
#cluboftheyear – The Mitsubishi Motors "Sailing Club of the Year" for 2014 will be announced tonight. W M Nixon looks back on a unique inter-club contest with which he has been involved since its inception 35 years ago, and reflects…
#woodenboat – Wood used to be the material of choice for boat-building. But it has long since been superseded by glassfibre and other variations of plastic, while aluminium – for more than two centuries the "metal of the future" -…
#cruising – Cruising is the hidden side of sailing, yet it's the choice for the majority of those going afloat. Whether it's day cruising, a longer venture in the annual holidays, or the dream cruise of a lifetime across oceans,…
#sailoroftheyear – W M Nixon reviews the lineup for the Afloat.ie Sailor of the Year 2013 for which voting concludes on February 17th, but only after he has considered some oddities and omissions in the annual circus of local, regional,…
Irish Sailor Finds Pacific Catamarans Give New Spin to Old Sailing Skills
10th January 2014 W M Nixon
#catamaran – It's the time of year when any sensible sailor is dreaming of skimming across warm blue water without a care in the world, and feeling at one with the ocean. W M Nixon introduces an organisation which is…
#rshyr – It is developing into one of the most complex Rolex Sydney-Hobart Races sailed in many a long day. And as it's in the upside-down Southern Hemisphere, weatherwise everything moves in different ways. W M Nixon isn't sure he…
The Rolex Sydney-Hobart Race would be a great event at any time. But the annual staging of this 628-mile challenge when much of the Northern Hemisphere is lying low under the effects of mid-winter celebrations provides welcome entertainment and interest…
With a Golden Jubilee Regatta being planned for New Zealand in 2015 to celebrate the glory years of the One Ton Cup from 1965 to 1983, W M Nixon ponders on the requirements for a genuine classic yacht or traditional…
The Peel Traditional Boat Weekend at the hospitable port on the west coast of the Isle of Man has been developing steadily since its inception in 1991. Located in the middle of the Irish Sea, the Peel gathering has become…
Mallaig Scottish Fishing & Ferry Port Fights It Out Over the Ablutions Block
29th November 2013 W M Nixon
A little fishing and ferry port with a small marina on a remote part of Scotland's west coast has recently been grabbing headlines in national newspapers. And it's basically all to do with the row provoked by the need for…
