Exhibition to Mark Commander Bill King's Epic Circumnavigation Opens in Galway City Museum

29th November 2023

Bill King suited on deck of his yacht

A new exhibition marking the 50th anniversary of the global circumnavigation by yacht by the late Commander Bill King opens in Galway City Museum this week.

A display of objects and memorabilia relating to his voyage, loaned by his family and involving Galway Bay Sailing Club support, will be exhibited at the museum.

Members of the King family will attend the event on Thursday, November 30th, when there will be a special showing of “King of the Waves'', a film written and directed by Luke Leslie.

There will also be reflections from his daughter Leonie King, son Tarka King and Johnny Shorten of GBSC.

The submarine commander and solo sailor was a lifelong honorary member of GBSC, and also hunted with the Galway Blazers.

His grandson and musician Cian Finn will premiere a very special song “Survive”, which he has composed especially for the occasion.

Read more about Bill KIng on Afloat here and listen to Leonie King's memories of her late father in a podcast here

Published in Bill King, Solo Sailing, Galway Harbour

Published in Bill King

Tagged under

About The Author

Lorna Siggins

Email The Author

Lorna Siggins is a print and radio reporter, and a former Irish Times western correspondent. She is the author of Search and Rescue: True stories of Irish Air-Sea Rescues and the Loss of R116 (2022); Everest Callling (1994) on the first Irish Everest expedition; Mayday! Mayday! (2004); and Once Upon a Time in the West: the Corrib gas controversy (2010). She is also co-producer with Sarah Blake of the Doc on One "Miracle in Galway Bay" which recently won a Celtic Media Award

We've got a favour to ask

More people are reading Afloat.ie than ever thanks to the power of the internet but we're in stormy seas because advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news sites, we haven’t put up a paywall because we want to keep our marine journalism open.

Afloat.ie is Ireland's only full–time marine journalism team and it takes time, money and hard work to produce our content.

So you can see why we need to ask for your help.

If everyone chipped in, we can enhance our coverage and our future would be more secure. You can help us through a small donation. Thank you.

You might also want to read...

About Commander Bill King, Solo Circumnavigator

William Donald Aelian King was the last surviving submarine commander in the Second World War - in charge of the British Navy's T-class Telemachus that sank a Japanese sub in the Strait of Malacca, between Malaysia and Sumatra, in 1944.

Decorated many times for his service by the end of the war, King became a trailblazing solo sailor.

At the age of 58, he was the oldest participant in The Sunday Times Golden Globe Race sailing Galway Blazer II, a junk-rigged schooner he designed himself.

After a number of abortive attempts, including an incident with "a large sea creature", he finally completed his solo circumnavigation of the globe in 1973.

Beyond his aquatic escapades, King settled with his wife Anita (who died in 1984, aged 70) at Oranmore Castle outside Galway after the war, where he later developed a pioneering organic farm and garden to help tackle his wife's asthma.

The round-the-world sailor and Galway native Bill King died on Friday, 21 September, 2012, aged 102.

ISORA

WIORA

SCORA

Solo Sailing

Tom Dolan

Conor O'Brien

Bill King

Transatlantic Jacques Vabre

Pamela Lee

Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

See All Featured Sections

Featured Sailing School

Featured Clubs

Featured Brokers

Featured Associations

Featured Chandleries

Featured Sailmakers

Featured Blogs