Frank Kowalski’s team from County Cork’s Safehaven Marine with their futurstic record-maker Thunder Child now have Rockall well astern in their counter-clockwise Round Ireland and Rockall Record bid writes W M Nixon.
After their first re-fuel on Ireland’s north coast yesterday afternoon, progress inititally was good, heading out toward the lone rock far into the Atlantic. But for a while this morning, in heading back to Ireland’s west coast, unfavourable condition slowed them back to 20 knots where the top speed since leaving the Cork coast has been 52 knots, with an average of 30.
However, the further they get from the Rockall bank, the smoother is the going, and at 0840hrs this morning they were back up to 36 knots and on track for the second re-fuelling stop at Ballyglass Pier in Broadhaven in far northwest Mayo around lunchtime. At time of writing, they have covered 1264 km in 22 hours 40 minutes at an average of 30 knots.