SAILING ROUND WORLD

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 19033, 10 June 1924, Page 7

SAILING ROUND WORLD

IRISH YACHT’S PROGRAMME. TO DUBLIN, VIA CAPE HORN. The 12-ton Irish cruising yacht Saoirse, now at Auckland, will probably take her final departure from that port homeward bound for Dublin, in September. She will go on the slip in a few days’ time, for hull examination, and it is the intention of Captain Conor O ’Brien, her skipper, to take a nui to the Islands, and return to Auckland to make all ready for his long homeward voyage. The Saoirse will sail via Cape Horn or the Magellan Strait, and will be running down the globe in the spring of the year, when he may expect to meet a fair number of icebergs. Captain O’Brien’s first projected port of call, if he goes round the Horn, is Rio Janiero, and he is allowing himself three months for the passage from Auckland to the Brazilian port. If he goes through the Magellan Strait he will put in at Punta Arenas, the most southerly port in the world. It is possible that after leaving Rio Janeiro he may call at Pernambuco, another Brazilian port, where he has friends, and then sail direct for England. Auckland to Rio Janeiro is his longest run between any two ports, and he estimates that he can carry a sufficiency of stores for that passage. Leaving New Zealand in September, the Saoirse will be nearing the coast of Ireland in the winter months, and maybe the adventurous little craft will get as severe a “dusting down” at the close of her cruise round the world as at any previous stage of the wander- , ings.

During her voyage out from Ireland, the yacht proved herself to be a staunch sea-boat, and the skipper says that at no time was it necessary to heave-to with a fair wind. “We ran out everything we met,” said Captain O’Brien. “Our best 24 hours’ run was 185 miles, which we made in the NorthEast trades. Running the easting down our best day’s run was 175 miles, but our best performance was 1130 miles in a week. The yacht, in crossing the Southern Ocean, did not go further south than 395., and she encountered excellent weather.

The captain of the Saoirse had a varied naval war experience. In 1915 he served as sub-lieutenant, R.N.R., in command of a trawler, doing patrol work out of Yarmouth and Newhaven. When on the Yarmouth station he met the late Lieut. G. H. P. Muhlhauser, who visited Auckland.two years ago in the 29-ton cruising yacht Amaryllis. Holding only a yacht-mas-ter’s certificate, Captain O’Brien had to retire after nine months’ service in the R.N.R. Later he joined the and served in motor-launches. Following this came service in a steam yacht, in the Stornoway patrol service and in a patrol gunboat as navigating officer.

After the armistice Captain O’Brien felt that he wanted a holiday. Honed his present world-cruise, a sort of “busman’s holiday,” true, but he explains this by the fact that he had an appointment to meet a man at the Mount Cook Hermitage, to embark upon a mountaineering holiday. That appointment he was too late to keep. His voyage companion, Captain Charles West, who holds a “square-rigged” master’s ticket, and who joined him at Melbourne, left the Saoirse at Napier, with an injured knee, but he will probably rejoin the yacht. Captain O’Brien, who is a member of the Royal Irish Yacht Club, and of the Royal Cruising Club, will bo a guest at the annual prize distribution of the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron to-day, when Lord Jellicoe will be present and Lady Jellicoe wul present the prizes.