Further tributes have been paid to mariner, journalist and advocate for traditional craft Tim Magennis who died recently at the age of 96.
As The Sunday Independent reports, maritime historian Cormac Lowth has described him a “kind, affable, and generous hearted man who was loved and will be missed by all”.
From 1970 (when he finally settled in Dublin) until his death in 2024, Tim Magennis was the only person in Ireland to have sailed round the world under gaff rig. For more on this see here
“Irishman, journalist, philosopher and dreamer” is how he was described in a documentary on that mid 1960s circumnavigation on the Norwegian ketch Sandefjord.
It was filmed by his skipper and crewmates, brothers Patrick and Barry Cullen, and a remastered version is on YouTube.
Magennis developed his love of the sea where he grew up in Ardglass, Co Down, offering to sweep prawns which had no value off the decks of local fishing vessels or nobbies.
After education in St Malachy’s College in Belfast, he pursued journalism, and was recruited to work with the Argus newspaper group, publishing in several British protectorates on the African continent.
He was reporting for The Rhodesia Herald in Nyasaland (now Malawi), when he warned of a food shortage in Nyasaland, stating that “the Doctor”, as in Prime Minister Dr Hastings Banda “had failed to make an impression on agriculture”,
Banda’s associates called him a liar, prompting him to sue for libel.
He was awarded £250 (pounds) in damages and costs, but refused to take the payment, saying people there deserved more money than him.
He had to leave the country when warned his life was in danger and got another reporting job in Durban, South Africa.
There, he met the Cullen brothers and then restored a 50-year-old timber ketch, Sandefjord, which had previously saved 117 lives with the Norwegian Lifeboat Society.
On learning that they planned to sail it around the world, he decided to go with them, bringing his typewriter and his guitar on a 30,279 nautical mile voyage.
With rations for 400 days, the crew set out from Durban in February 1965, sailing through the West Indies, Panama Canal, crossing the Pacific and finishing back in Durban in November 1966.
Magennis was the oldest, at 32, and on board were Patrick (24) and Barry Cullen (28), along with Wally Stright (26) who had spent four years in US Navy, Fanie Louw (21) from the Transvaal, and New Zealand teacher Mary Clayton, also in her twenties.
In heavy weather on the leg from Polynesia to Australia, the vessel’s mizzen mast broke, and they had 20 cans of baked beans left when they berthed in Sydney - where they undertook extensive repairs before setting out again for Durban.
Magennis was reunited with one of his fellow crew, Patrick Cullen, when he and his wife Anne, who he had met in London, moved to Noank at the mouth of the Mystic river in Connecticut..
Magennis and Cullen worked together on sailing boats up and down the east coast of north America.
He was employed by Bord Failte after he and Anne returned to Ireland, where they reared three daughters, Kira, Sophie and Kate.
He continued sailing and restoring traditional wooden vessels, and linked up through this shared interest with Sean Cullen, son of his friend Patrick, when Sean came to Ireland.
The pair restored several timber vessels, including two clipper-bowed gaff sloops designed in the 1890s by Herbert Boyd, the Eithne and the Marguerite.
Cullen described Magennis at his funeral as his “Irish father and my best friend”.
The Main Men. Tim Magennis, the DBOGA President (right), congratulates Dickie Gomes of the 1912 Ringsend-built yawl Ainmara on becoming the first winner of the DBOGA's Leinster Salver in Dublin Bay in 2013. Photo: W M Nixon
Passionate about traditional craft – be it revival of Galway hookers, restoration of the original Asgard, or tracking down Guinness barges – Magennis was a founder of the Dublin Bay Old Gaffers Association.
He became president of the parent organisation in Britain, and was made an honorary life member. He also edited the Maritime Institute journal, Iris Na Mara, and sat on its council.
Tim Magennis is predeceased by his wife, Anne, and survived by his daughters, Kira, Sophie and Kate and extended family.
Read The Sunday Independent here
