Galway Blazer II, the first junk

May 22, 2024

In 1967, Bill King had the ambition to sail solo around the world. He had a boat built for this purpose at the Souter shipyard in Cowes, on the Isle of Wight. Galway Blazer II was a 42-foot schooner, designed by Angus Primrose, inspired by Chinese boats that the naval officer had discovered during his travels. She is built in plywood and cold molded. Her junk rigging and sails are based on traditional Far Eastern rigging. It is similar to Jester, the junk-rigged Folkboat used by former Royal Marine Colonel Herbert Hasler in the first solo transatlantic race, the OSTAR. The boat was exhibited at the London Boat Show in January 1968.

At the same time, the start of the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, the first non-stop single-handed round-the-world race, was announced. Since the project coincided with his desire to circumnavigate, Bill King decided to participate. At 58, he is the oldest participant in the race. He explained that he had joined the starting line on August 24, 1968 to recover psychologically from his 15 years of service in submarines.

Fast and elegant, Galway Blazer II lacked guardrails and shrouds, a handicap for safety. To solve this problem, Bill King installed a steel rope that extended from the bow to the stern, and on which he fixed a harness. This method was later copied by other sailors such as Loïck Fougeron and Bernard Moitessier.

On October 31 of the same year, while resting, the boat was laid up in waves of nearly 15 m, while it was northeast of Gough Island, in the roaring forties. Both masts were broken and the sailor and his boat were towed back to Cape Town. The race was over.

In 1969, King attempted a new round-the-world voyage, in vain, still aboard the repaired Galway Blazer II. In 1970, he made one last attempt, which he succeeded in despite several setbacks. On December 12, 1971, while he was below deck, a sea creature damaged his boat at the hull level. The man then had the idea of heeling it as much as possible so that the hole was out of the water, and managed to repair it in three days. He was then about 400 miles from Freemantle, Western Australia, which he eventually reached. After further repairs, he left Australia to finally complete his circumnavigation on May 23, 1973. He became the first Irish-based sailor to accomplish this feat, and Galway Blazer II the first junk to complete a circumnavigation.

The boat continued to sail in other races, such as the OSTAR, before being sold to Peter Crowther, a Devon pub owner. Bill King passed away in 1992 at the age of 102. His boat continued to compete in single-handed and crewed races, but also sailed as a family. The life of Galway Blazer II ended on June 24, 1996, during the tenth solo transatlantic race from Plymouth, England, to Newport, Rhode Island in the United States. The boat sank in the Atlantic after structural damage in heavy weather. Crowther wrote a book about his adventures aboard his boat.