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#Safety - Two recent crushing accidents in the UK and Australia have restated the need for vigilance at the waterside even when boats are moored.

Yachting & Boating World reported last month on a port worker at Denton Wharf in Gravesend who was rendered critically ill after being crushed against a pier by a 40-tonne barge.

Thirty-six-year-old Michael Russell, a 20-year veteran of the wharf, was mooring the boat when the accident occurred. His wife Natalie said he "was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Elsewhere, Australia's 9 News reports that the body of a man in his late 20s or early 30s was recovered from the water in Sydney Harbour after falling overboard from a luxury yacht and being crushed against a mooring pillar.

Both incidents should serve as a reminder all those on or near boats moored at port or dockside to maintain the same safety standards they would while on the water.

Published in Water Safety

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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