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Displaying items by tag: Canoe World Championships

#Canoeing: Ronan Foley capped a terrific year with a silver medal in the junior K1 at the canoe marathon World Championships in Vila de Prado in Portugal.

Thorbjorn Rask of Denmark won gold through an early breakaway, while Foley took silver just ahead of Vince Petro of Hungary.  

canoe Jon simmonsRonan Foley (left) and coach Jon Simmons

 

Published in Canoeing

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.