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Displaying items by tag: Franklin Expedition

#Adventure - An Irish duo have returned home after crossing the world's largest frozen lake in Russia.

As RTÉ News reports, Mike O'Shea from Dingle and Clare O'Leary from Bandon traversed the 640km-long Lake Baikal in Siberia over 26 days, contending with temperatures 30 degrees below freezing.

The challenge was the second mission in the veteran adventurer pair's 'Ice Project', an attempt to cross the world's main ice caps before the end of 2016.

Their next adventure will be a crossing of either Iceland or Greenland - where another intrepid group of Irish adventurers are headed this summer, as previously reported on Afloat.ie.

Meanwhile, rower Paul Gleeson writes in The Irish Times about his own upcoming challenge, joining three other men in a 25ft rowing boat to travel the 2,000 miles of the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic.

Limerick man Gleeson, who is now based in Canada, compares the trek to the infamous Franklin Expedition through the passage in the mid 1800s - a tragic mission with an Irish connection through its second-in-command Francis Crozier.

The Irish Times has much more on the story HERE.

Published in News Update

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

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