About

Hi! My name is Eoin and I grew up in Limerick, Ireland. I work as a yacht engineer and charter skipper and in my free time I go kayaking, surfing and sailing as much as possible. This blog started life nearly ten years ago when I started using it to record all of the kayaking trips and competitions I was doing at the time. Since then my life has changed direction a little bit; I am still outdoors and on the water as much as ever but these days it's on sailing boats rather than kayaks. I have spent the last four years sailing almost full-time; a mixture of working for charter companies, going on trips with friends and sailing solo on my own boat in the west of Ireland. I have sailed over ten thousand nautical miles in total and hold a commercially endorsed yachtmaster offshore qualification. I am available for freelance work if anybody reading this is looking for a skipper!

My boat is a 1969 Hurley 22 called Moonshine. I bought Moonshine nearly two years ago and since then I have sailed her nearly one thousand miles on trips between Cork city and Achill Island. At the moment she is in a boatyard in Limerick, feeling the effects of time and in need of a pretty thorough refit. Thankfully, over the last few years I have built up quite a lot of experience of fiberglass repairs, electrical work, plumbing, rigging repairs and all sorts of other useful skills while working on charter boats, so I'll be able to do pretty much all of the work needed by myself. I have also done enough sailing on Moonshine and a wide enough variety of other boats to know exactly what modifications I want to make to her. My goal is to turn her into a minimalist but capable, go-anywhere little cruiser. These boats have a legendary reputation as offshore voyagers, from Atlantic crossings to Pacific circuits, and although my plans don't extend quite that far (yet!), it's nice to know that those options potentially exist!

When I have finished the refit and done a little bit of test sailing, my plan is to give her a proper shake-down by doing a non-stop, single-handed circumnavigation of the island of Ireland. While being an achievement in it's own right, this is also the ideal way to give the auto-steering and electrical systems a proper test while remaining within reach of land in case of anything going wrong. I also hope to use the excellent mobile phone reception on the coast of Ireland to be active on social media and use the voyage to spread a message of environmental awareness and sustainable living.