Kilrush will be the starting point for an attempt by Peter Lawless to become the first Irish person to solo navigate around the world.
Originally from Limerick, Peter currently resides in Annascaul in Kerry but learned how to sail in Mountshannon at the age of four on an optimist dinghy, the lessons from East Clare will be put into practice as he takes off on an unforgettable journey.
He expects the trip will take approximately eight months but has outlined that it could take ten months. Peter will sail solo and unassisted non-stop to Ireland and back via the five great capes.
A sextant and paper charts will be used by Peter as his primary navigation tools. His yacht wax wing is a Rival 41, a standard production offshore cruising yacht that he upgraded for the challenge.
On Saturday, he will depart Kilrush Marina to begin the trip. He is confident his respect for the sea will stand to him over the coming months. “You would have to have a healthy fear of the ocean and I do, I’ve an exceptional boat that I picked purposefully for this challenge, she is an incredible sea boat, I’ve the best of equipment, very good knowledge, I wouldn’t go if I was terrified because it wouldn’t be a good idea, a healthy fear is good and a healthy fear of the sea will keep you alive”.
He added, “The fear factor isn’t a big deal to me, I don’t think you could do something like this if you were afraid of it, what I would be afraid of is equipment failure”.
Breaking his mast or losing a rudder were listed as Peter as the two items that would represent a worst case scenario. However, the fact he is not under time pressures limits the risks involved, he felt. “I’m not racing, I’m not trying to break speed records, I will have good weather systems so will hopefully be able to avoid the worst of a storm”.
While the notion of the trip may sound unusual, it is something Peter has been hoping to do for a long time and was inspired by his father. “As my Dad got older, he started doing off-shore sailing over and back to the States, he went off and did a circumnavigation and came back in 1996 at the age of 70 after a three year circumnavigation, he spent a winter in New Zealand before he continued on the following year, I don’t plan to do that. I was sixteen when my Dad started long distance off-shore sailing, that was great encouragement for me,” he recalled.
Preparation has brought with it a fourteen hour workload per day, a big aspect of this is food preparation. “Cathy my wife is helping me with the food prep, the food prep alone is huge, we’ll count out all the spoons of coffee and bring enough for ten months,” he quipped. “I’ll be moving all the time unless there is no wind. It is unlikely that I will fish, I will have fishing gear but I don’t expect to fish, I would also be worried about species and not recognising what I would be eating”.
Peter’s trip of a lifetime can be tracked on www.peterlawlesssolocircumnavigation.com/
