Skippered by Eoin Keyes with Leonie Conway as crew, the Hurley 22 Moonshine returned to Kinsale yesterday (Thursday) evening to complete a non-stop sail round Ireland. The voyage was undertake to raise awareness of the recent formation of the Irish Chapter of the marine conservation international Sea Shepherd movement, and proved to be extremely timely, as the Sea Shepherds have been leading the global outcry against this week’s barbaric enactment of the “traditional” grindadrap in the Faroe Islands, the mass annual whale slaughter which resulted in the deaths of 1500 whir-sided dolphins on a Faroese beach.

As one of the smallest boats to have made the round Ireland circuit, Moonshine fond the often difficult stage from the Irish Sea to the finish at her home port to be a challenge with calms and then headwinds, but the final miles yesterday saw the wind freeing to speed their progress towards a warm welcome home.