Sailing on Saturday with WM Nixon
All Skill Sets Will Be Tested In SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race From Wicklow Today
18th June 2022 Round Ireland
With the four year pandemic-imposed gap since the previous edition in 2018, today’s restoration of the biennial SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race from Wicklow has been attracting an unprecedented amount of countdown attention and discussion. There has been an across-the-board…
Countdown To SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race Is In Midst Of Upsurge In International Events
11th June 2022 W M Nixon
After 42 years of the 704 miles biennial Round Ireland Yacht Race from Wicklow, there must be hundreds – indeed, possibly thousands - of sailors throughout Ireland and beyond who will be pausing thoughtfully from time to time during the…
How can you make sense of a sport which features at least 143 World Championships? It’s a question which was first asked many years ago when the then International Sailing Federation (now World Sailing) accorded official “International” status to two…
There has been a surprisingly mixed reaction to the news that next weekend, in celebration of the Royal Platinum Jubilee, the sailing-mad town of Bangor on Belfast Lough will be conferred with City Status. Joy has not been unalloyed. Apart…
Wicklow’s SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race Entries Push Towards 50 With Strong International Interest
21st May 2022 W M Nixon
They’d seven entries in the first Fastnet Race of 1925, and seven entries started yesterday morning in the inaugural 240-mile Kinsale YC Inishtearacht Race - there and back from Kinsale, round the only lighthouse island of Ireland’s furthest west Blasket…
You need to be several different people at once in order to thrive in Howth sailing. A classic case in point is former HYC Commodore Brian Turvey. His current highest-profile role - ahead of other deeply committed personal involvements -…
These past few days have been purest serendipity for historic Irish boatbuilders. Just two days after the 1926-vintage West Cork-built Limerick ketch Ilen was celebrated beside the River Thames in London on Wednesday, the 1937 Tyrrell of Arklow 43ft ketch…
We hear so much about the “New Normal” in everyday life ashore that it’s becoming difficult to remember what the Old Normal was like, as employers resort to bribery (“Special Bonuses” if you insist) to entice WFH employees back into…
Conor O’Brien Circumnavigation Centenary Commemoration Postage Stamps Proposed
23rd April 2022 W M Nixon
Barry Keane and Tony Doherty of Mountaineering Ireland have formally proposed that commemorative postage stamps be issued to celebrate the up-coming Centenary of Conor O’Brien’s pioneering voyage round the world south of the Great Capes with his Irish-built 42ft ketch…
With at least four Mark Mills-designed Cape 31s making their Irish class debut at the Wave Regatta in Howth from June 3rd to 5th, we will see one very important wheel come full circle. For it was a 31ft Mark…
Joe Woodward of Cork, who has died aged 90, was the very personification of the spirit of Cork city and harbour as a place where the good things in life are there to be enjoyed, and enjoyed in style. This…
The past two years would have been difficult enough for Irish sailing as we navigated our way - usually with reasonable success – towards keeping our sport as active as possible through various manifestations of the pandemic regulations. But in…
America’s Cup Hosting: Barcelona’s Bazooka Bid Blows Cork Harbour Out of the Water
26th March 2022 W M Nixon
The revelation that the mighty Spanish sailing resort and port city of Barcelona has been secretly putting together a powerful hosting bid for the 2024 America’s Cup in the heart of vibrant Catalonia has been bruising news down Cork Harbour…
SSE Renewables Round Ireland Yacht Race Is St Patrick’s Parade For Sailing In Ireland
19th March 2022 W M Nixon
For most of us, the pandemic has been a matter of two years in limbo. And it maybe isn’t over yet, even if everyone is behaving as though we’re well into the end game. But for gallant little Wicklow Sailing…
Lough Ree Clinkerfest To Celebrate Our Classic Boat-building Heritage With Sailing Sport
12th March 2022 W M Nixon
While the sailing programme during the past two years has managed to be played out afloat in a truncated form whenever changing regulations permitted, anything which involved a significant shoreside element of socialising was either cancelled completely, or else moth-balled…
One minute it’s winter, and a socially-constrained pandemic-plagued winter at that. And next thing you know, it’s summer, freedom is declared, and our clubs are switching into instant overdrive as sailors go crazy trying to compensate for two years of…
