WM Nixon
William M Nixon has been writing about sailing in Ireland for many years in print and online, and his work has appeared internationally in magazines and books. His own experience ranges from club sailing to international offshore events, and he has cruised extensively under sail, often in his own boats which have ranged in size from an 11ft dinghy to a 35ft cruiser-racer. He has also been involved in the administration of several sailing organisations.
Wobble-Free Performance from Royal Cork's 'Jelly Baby' in Class Zero of Howth's ICRA Nationals
9th September 2023 ICRA
With a building breeze promising livelier conditions later in the day, you might have expected the slipper, smaller craft to set the pace in the opening salvo of Class 0's delayed series of the Monday.com ICRA National Championships at Howth…
Monday.com ICRA Nats 2023 At Howth Are A Modern Take On A Time-Honoured Tradition
8th September 2023 W M Nixon
When the three-day Irish Cruiser-Racing Association monday.com-sponsored annual National Championship gets underway today (Friday) at Howth, it will be the combination of a modern innovation in Irish sailing, which is barely twenty years old, and a local regatta tradition of…
Simon Revill is something of a Force of Nature in the racing of the historic IDRA 14 class. But then, that’s what you’d probably expect from someone who is a potent mixture of Irish and Yorkshire ancestry. While he has…
The leaders in the Solitaire Figaro Paprec 2023 came round the turning point off the North Brittany coast at 0215 this morning with Tom Dolan very much among them, and after a brief period of windward work along the Breton…
Ireland’s Tom Dolan And Figaro Fleet Start 54th Annual Solo Contest Towards Kinsale on Sunday
26th August 2023 W M Nixon
The Solitaire du Figaro has been a significant feature of the European sailing scene for 54 years now, and today it is well established as La Solitaire du Figaro Paprec, supported by the 1985-founded French re-cycling and green energy conglomerate.…
Howth’s Young Solo Sailors Maintain MG Motor “Club of Year” Spirit With Two National Titles
21st August 2023 Howth YC
It would have been easy to make two quick assumptions in advance of the past weekend’s sailing. The first would have been the reasonable expectation that Storm Betty, accurately forecast as she was, and sweeping right across Ireland in an…
J Boats Riding High Towards First J Cup Ireland In Dublin Bay In A Week’s Time
19th August 2023 W M Nixon
The international J Boat fleet, with its many variants, fills a special role in world sailing, with an underlying sense of family permeating this attractive no-nonsense craft. For it all of course, stems from the initial creative introduction – explosion,…
Kinvara’s Tradition-Celebrating Cruinnui na mBad Is Becoming Symbolic Of Change
16th August 2023 Galway Hookers
When the late Tony Moylan and his friends got together 44 years ago to inaugurate the Cruinnui na mBad at Kinvara in order to celebrate and help the preservation of the traditional sailing boats of Connemara and Galway Bay, most…
Howth 17 Quasquicentennial Celebrations See 125th Anniversary Nationals Taken by “Sutton Squad”
13th August 2023 Howth 17
While the Howth 17s have continued with their usual club fixtures throughout their 125th Year – the Quasquicentennial – with regular events such as the Single-Handed Race (won in 2023 by 2022 National Champion Davy Jones sailing Rosemary), innovative Class…
Dublin Port's New Heritage Centre Will Set The Standard For Heritage Week With Cormac Lowth Lecture
12th August 2023 Dublin Port
With Heritage Week upon us, the well-archived history of Dublin Port places the opening of its new Heritage Centre on Alexandra Road at the forefront of events, and with Cormac Lowth, they have the ideal maritime history enthusiast to put…
Although the announcement that Howth Yacht Club had become the latest MG Motor “Sailing Club of the Year 2023” was made at the beginning of the year following outstanding achievements at home and abroad by the club and its members…
Laura Dillon Finishes Cowes Week In The Frame (Again) With Second Overall In Class
4th August 2023 Cowes Week
Howth's Laura Dillon - All Ireland Helm Champion 1996 - has been in her accustomed place in Cowes Week doing the driving on Harry Heijst's vintage S&S 41 Winsome from The Netherlands, and finished the Week at second overall in…
Sailing In Ireland: Good Weather Is Now Just Around The Corner – But Which Corner?
5th August 2023 W M Nixon
Down Kerry way where the weather is often for adults only, they say that when Noah came bobbing along in his crowded Ark across the boundless wastes of flood water, the first sign of any land-indicating feature with life that…
Fastnet Race Day 6 - Rapid night-time progress up Channel to the Cherbourg finish has seen the Murphy family's Grand Soleil 40 Nieulargo of the Royal Cork Yacht Club pip Mike O'Donnell's J/121 Darkwood (Royal Irish YC) for the best-placed…
Fastnet Race Day Five 1900 - France's Presidential Department of Protocol or some such secretive yet high-powered bureaucracy seems to have taken over dark world control of the Western Approaches weather system for the latter part of the Cherbourg-finishing 50th…
Cork’s Honorary Special Veteran Maluka’s Handy Little Hitch-Hike To Europe For The 50th Fastnet Race
26th July 2023 Fastnet
Sean Langman’s superbly-restored 1932-vintage 30ft Sydney Harbour Ranger Class gaff cutter Maluka finally put the Fastnet Rock astern at 9:00 hrs this morning (Wednesday), and now her crew - including the legendary Gordon Maguire - are making the best of…
Fastnet Race Day 5 0800 - A slowly rising southwest breeze through the night has put fresh purpose into the on-track progress of the large fleet of Fastnet racers still at sea, but by early afternoon today (Wednesday) in the…
Fastnet Race Day Four 1800 - They really should think of some word other than "calm" to describe the situation in an offshore race when the wind falls away after a period of brisk breezes. "Calm" suggests quiet serenity, yet…
Fastnet Racers To Have Day Of Gentler Conditions Before Atlantic Weather Returns
25th July 2023 Fastnet
Fastnet Race Day Four 0900 - When they were approaching the Fastnet Rock yesterday, the middle cohort of this still-large fleet in the 50th Edition of the Fastnet Race found that summer was quietly enjoying itself around West Cork's legendary…
Fastnet Race Day Three, 5pm: After the first 30 hours or so with rather more wind - and headwinds at that - than most entrants sought, it looks as though the turbines may be slowed down or even turned off…
