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Displaying items by tag: Adventures in Antarctica

#Lecture - Friends of Glenua are to have a lecture 'Adventures in Antarctica' and launch of an autobiography 'So Far, So Good' by Paddy Barry this Thursday 2 November at 20:00.

The venue will be in the Poolbeg Yacht & Boat Club, Ringsend, Dublin and where there will be an entry fee of €5 in aid of the RNLI.

Paddy Barry has led an adventurous life land and sea. His crossing of the Atlantic in his Galway hooker, St Patrick, was a just a prelude to a series of ever more ambitious voyages and expeditions. These include traversing the North West and North East Passages through the Artic ice cap.

Paddy was joint leader and skipper of the Tom Crean for the South Aris expedition to Antartica in 1997. He has been presented with numerous awards, including the coveted Blue Water Medal of the Cruising Club of America, in recognition of his achievements.

In his talk, Paddy will narrate how he and his six fellow Irishmen organised the South Aris expedition to recreate the 800 mile voyage of Ernest Shackleton from Elephant Island to South Georgia in a 23 foot lifeboat. A near ‘wipe out’ didn’t deter the South Aris expedition from laying a brass plaque on behalf of the Irish people at Shackleton's grave at Grytviken, South Georgia.

His talk will be followed by the launch of Paddy’s recently published autobiography, So Far, So Good-An Adventurous Life. Purchase the book online here.

Published in Coastal Notes

Tom Dolan, Solo Offshore Sailor

Even when County Meath solo sailor Tom Dolan had been down the numbers in the early stages of the four-stage 2,000 mile 2020 Figaro Race, Dolan and his boat were soon eating their way up through the fleet in any situation which demanded difficult tactical decisions.

His fifth overall at the finish – the highest-placed non-French sailor and winner of the Vivi Cup – had him right among the international elite in one of 2020's few major events.

The 33-year-old who has lived in Concarneau, Brittany since 2009 but grew up on a farm in rural County Meath came into the gruelling four-stage race aiming to get into the top half of the fleet and to underline his potential to Irish sailing administrators considering the selection process for the 2024 Olympic Mixed Double Offshore category which comes in for the Paris games.