Displaying items by tag: Sea Bangor Maritime Festival

1st October 2010

Royal Navy Mine-Hunter to Visit Dublin

A courtesy visit by the Royal Navy's HMS Bangor (M106) is due in Dublin tomorrow. The mine counter-measure vessel is base-ported at HM Naval Base, Clyde, Scotland and is named after Bangor, the shoreside town on Belfast Lough.

For over 15 years, the 484-tonnes vessel has had a close affiliation with the Combined Cadet Force and Bangor Grammar School. In late June HMS Bangor returned to her namesake port to support Armed Forces Day celebrations which included the 150th anniversary of the Sea Cadets and to participate in the annual Sea Bangor Maritime Festival.

HMS Bangor is the ninth 'Sandown' class of Single Role Minehunters (SRMH) built by Vosper Thorneycroft, Woolston near Southampton. The glass-reinforced plastic (GRP) ship was launched in April 1999. The vessel has a crew of 34 and is fitted with an array of mine countermeasure equipment that includes decoy launchers and disposal systems.

In 2002 the vessel was deployed to the Gulf in Operation Telic, conducting mine clearance operations in Khawr Abd Allah ahead of humanitarian aid shipments which were ferried into the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr.

Published in Dublin Bay

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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