Displaying items by tag: Feerick

22nd July 2017

Ireland's Women's Double and Women's Junior Four Win at Homes Rowing

Chloe Mehigan and Claire Feerick, Winners at the Home International

#Rowing: Ireland picked up more wins at the Home International Regatta in Strathclyde today. Early in the day they had won the women’s and men’s lightweight pairs. The women’s senior double of Chloe Mehigan (Cork) and Claire Feerick (Neptune) won a good battle with Scotland to take the senior women’s double, and Ireland’s junior four of Mia Jane Elliot, Zoe McCutcheon, Caitlyn Fee and Miriam Kelly also won. They are all Enniskillen rowers.

Home International Regatta, Strathclyde (Ireland Winners; early)

Men

Lightweight Pair: C Hennessy, S O’Sullivan

Women

Double: C Mehigan, C Feerick

Lightweight Pair: G Crowe, H O’Neill

Junior – Four: MJ Elliot, Z McCutcheon, C Fee, M Kelly

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About Conor O'Brien, Irish Circumnavigator

In 1923-25, Conor O'Brien became the first amateur skipper to circle the world south of the Great Capes. O'Brien's boat Saoirse was reputedly the first small boat (42-foot, 13 metres long) to sail around the world since Joshua Slocum completed his voyage in the 'Spray' during 1895 to 1898. It is a journey that O' Brien documented in his book Across Three Oceans. O'Brien's voyage began and ended at the Port of Foynes, County Limerick, Ireland, where he lived.

Saoirse, under O'Brien's command and with three crew, was the first yacht to circumnavigate the world by way of the three great capes: Cape Horn, Cape of Good Hope and Cape Leeuwin; and was the first boat flying the Irish tri-colour to enter many of the world's ports and harbours. He ran down his easting in the Roaring Forties and Furious Fifties between the years 1923 to 1925.

Up until O'Brien's circumnavigation, this route was the preserve of square-rigged grain ships taking part in the grain race from Australia to England via Cape Horn (also known as the clipper route).

At a Glance - Conor O'Brien's Circumnavigation

In June 1923, Limerick man Conor O’Brien set off on his yacht, the Saoirse — named after the then newly created Irish Free State — on the two-year voyage from Dun Laoghaire Harbour that was to make him the first Irish amateur to sail around the world.

June 1923 - Saoirse’s arrival in Madeira after her maiden passage out from Dublin Bay

2nd December 1924 - Saoirse crossed the longitude of Cape Horn

June 20th 1925 - O’Brien’s return to Dun Laoghaire Harbour