ADVENTUROUS VOYAGE

Southland Times, Issue 19578, 16 June 1925, Page 5

ADVENTUROUS VOYAGE

ROUND THE WORLD IN KETCH. CONOR O’BRIEN’S FEAT. LONDON, June 1. Dublin is preparing a public welcome to the adventurous Conor O’Brien, who is expected to reach Kingstown on June 20, after a two years’ voyage round the world in the 12-ton ketch, Saoirse. After leaving New Zealand, he called at the Faulkland Islands and joined an Antartic whaling expedition. Thende he went to Pernambuco, and at present he is at the Azores, suffering from eye strain. There surely never was a more remarkable cruise undertaken than that of Conor O’Brien, owner and skipper of the little Limerick yawl which reached Melbourne on January 31 of last year, on a 75,000 mile voyage round the world, via the Cape of Good Hope and the terrible Cape Horn. O’Brien called at Melbourne for stores for himself and his crew of three—a boy, who was making his first trip in sail “for experience” ; a Durban taxi-driver, who had left the sea and returned to it; and an oldtime shipmate of his, of whom it was said that he left the sea only when he was out of a job. BUILT HIS OWN BOAT The yawl, the Saoirse flew the tri-colour of the Irish Free State and the ensign of the Royal Irish Yacht Club, and on her arrival in Melbourne both flags were seen for the first time. O’Brien was in the thick of the Irish rebellion, and it was between mixing vigorously in whatever reckless rows he could find in turbulent 1922 that he built his litf.e dream-boat on the beach at Baltimore. His intention originally was to sail to New Zealand and climb Mount Cook. On the way down the Atlantic a hurricane blew the adventurers hundereds of miles out of their course, and they had to run for Pernambuco, on the coast of Brazil, to repair a sprung mainmast. Then O’Brien made for Durban, where he “sacked his crew because they turned out to be a lot of loafing bounders,” he told people in Melbourne. SUGAR—AND WHISKY. The crew he picked up at Durban had an unenviable time in a storm between there and Capetown. Stores aboard consisted of potatoes for only half the voyage to Melbourne, and a case of whisky for every pound of sugar—there were 121 b. of sugar. The skipper’s library consisted of all that Thackeray ever wrote, Melville’s sea yarns, and all the works of Conrad. But at Melbourne his Durban crew left him. The craft was really little more than 11 tons gross, and only 40ft. long. A new crew was secured on February 12, and the following day the Saoirse left Melbourne for New Zesdand. His crew now consisted of three Tasmanians, “Tango” Willoughby, Ron Flaherty, and Geoff. Green, whose ages were 19, 194, and 20 years respectively. But a week later the yawl was back in Port Phillip again. His crew unused to such a small vessel, became seasick in a storm 60 miles south by east off Cape Schanck, and they insisted on returning. Green was signed off, but the other two refused to leave. However, O'Brien had the Saoirse docked. His crew thought it safer.