Kerry sailor forced to drop out of round-the-world race after three years' preparation

Pat Lawless was two months into the race when a fault in his boat’s steering equipment brought his journey to a sudden end

Pat Lawless hoped to become the first Irish person to sail solo non-stop around the world. Picture: Darragh Kane

Broken equipment has forced a solo sailor from Kerry to pull out of the round-the-world Golden Globe Race for which he spent three years preparing.

Pat Lawless, who was a carpenter and a fish-trawler owner during his working life, had ambitions to be the first Irish person to complete the tough 33,000-mile journey.

He was two months into the race when he had to drop out due to a fault in his boat’s steering equipment.

The race is known to be one of the sport's most gruelling as it is non-stop, and participants cannot receive any assistance or communication with loved ones back home as the only communication allowed is through 1968 technology, from when the first race took place.

Mr Lawless was in fourth place in the south Atlantic, approaching Capetown, when a malfunction on Green Rebel’s self-steering system brought his journey to a sudden end.

He had to let the race organisers know of the difficulties he ran into a few days ago, and he docked in Capetown last night, much to the sailor’s disappointment.

Mr Lawless explained that five days ago his Aries self-steering system “packed up".

"A bearing or a bushing went on it. I couldn't go on. I tried all different ways of fixing it but I couldn’t," he said.

I actually got the boat sailing quite well without it but in a storm you’d broach. You’d go broadside. You just couldn’t cope... I thought I’d be able to fix it. I was living in cloud cuckoo land.

Mr Lawless said he was highly emotional when he realised it would not be possible for him to continue.

However, he acknowledged that it would have been too dangerous to complete the race while his boat was damaged, after five hard days during which he attempted to repair the equipment himself.

Having sailed almost 8,000 nautical miles already, he said the part of the race he completed was the “sail of a lifetime". 

Pat Lawless, a former fisherman from Kerry, aboard his yacht the Green Rebel.  Picture: Dan Linehan

“The only time was during the thunder and lightning in the doldrums. It was a serious storm, right on top of me," he said.

"One of the worst things of not finishing is I feel bad for all my sponsors and supporters. But I enjoyed it. It was a fantastic journey. I can go home and regroup. I’ll enjoy my sail home,” Mr Lawless said.

The Kerry man is one of four sailors who were forced to drop out of the race and 16 competitors are now left to take on the months of sailing ahead.