The Ilen

Auxiliary Ketch Ilen: Beginnings

During Conor O'Brien's famous circumnavigation in the yacht Saoirse, he broke his homeward journey in The Falkland Islands in December 1924. His stay there led to the commissioning by The Falklands Islands Company of a larger version of the Saoirse, the A.K. ILEN. By October 1925, a 56 foot ketch, with auxiliary engine, was under construction in Baltimore under the supervision of Tom Moynihan. O'Brien remarked when he saw her ready for launching on the slip at Baltimore that she was 'a handsomer model' than the Saoirse. The fact that she was to survive 60 brutally busy years as the Falklands service boat, undertaking harsh work of many kinds, testifies to the excellent quality of her construction.

Following the launch of the Ilen in the spring of 1926, O'Brien sailed her to his favourite haunts in Kerry and into the Shannon Estuary, his home, calling at Derrynane on the way. There he raided the Saoirse and plundered her gear before setting sail for the Falklands with two Cape Clear men as crew – Denis Cadogan and his cousin Con. With Saoirse, he had endured many crew changes on the circumnavigation, but the 'Capers' proved congenial shipmates, and went all the way to the Falklands. They sailed via Bristol, south to Madeira and ports in Brazil (including Rio de Janeiro, where O'Brien much admired the architecture) and on to Mar del Plata in Argentina. When the Ilen reached Port Stanley early in the New Year of 1927, she received a great reception. Conor O'Brien fondly concluded his account of this venture thus: '(We) put upon the sails of my old ship, with the help of the two good comrades who had brought her from Ireland, that careful stow which is the due of any port, before I closed the most enjoyable of all my voyages with the conventional order: That will do, men.’