A solo sailor has travelled 6,000 miles across the Atlantic in a boat he built himself.
American Bill Verity has successfully sailed the Atlantic from Fort Lauderdale in Florida to Fenit near Tralee in County Kerry.
The journey took 65 days on a 12-foot wood and fibreglass boat that Bill Verity built himself. The boat is named Nonoalca, meaning the mute one. His first sight of land along the Irish coast was the Tearaght lighthouse on one of the Blasket Islands.
Fittingly, Tralee is the birthplace of Brendan the Bold, who allegedly travelled across the Atlantic to America before Columbus. Bill Verity made the journey to show that it was possible that ancient monks could have travelled across the Atlantic in small boats.
In 1965, Mr Verity had sailed the Nonoalca 3,500 miles in the Gulf of Mexico simulating the migration of the Mayan Indians to Florida.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 13 July 1966. The footage shown here is mute.
