SWIRLY WORLD IN PERPETUITY

The yacht with the eccentric name was the creation of an eccentric man. It was built in 1973 by an Aucklander called Michael Brien who had founded the Church of Physical Immortality and styled himself as the First World President of the United Planet. The yacht was of plywood chine construction, measured 17ft 6in long, and had such features as a self-draining cockpit, inboard engine and a rig with twin forestays.

Poignantly, one of the first trips Michael Brien undertook in the Swirly World was in the southern summer of 1973 when he towed John Riding and the Sea Egg from Auckland to Kawau, at the start of Riding's fatal attempt to cross the Tasman. 

The yacht was purchased in 1985 by Andrew Fagan, lead singer of the Kiwi rock band The Mockers. Fagan went to make a number of offshore voyages in Swirley World, including a round trip in 1986 from Auckland to the Pacific island of Raoul.

In 1994, the yacht was refurbished in order for it to make its most ambitous voyage to date - a crossing of the Tasman, undertaken as part of the Solo Trans-Tasman Yacht Race. This event started from New Plymouth in New Zealand. Swirly World's E-W crossing ended at the finish line at Mooloolaba on Australia's Queensland coast, taking 17 days 2 hours.

Later that same year, after a period of storage in Australia, the yacht sailed down from Mooloolaba to Brisbane (where the above photo was taken), which served as the starting point for the return journey to New Zealand. The W-E voyage, which ended in Auckland, took exactly 18 days.

By virtue of these two voyages, the Swirly World is the smallest yacht to make a double crossing of the Tasman.

Andrew Fagan wrote "Swirly World: The Solo Voyages", published in 2001, the book switching between accounts of his life at sea, sailing in his small yacht, and his life ashore, as one of new Zealand's rock icons of the 1980s and 1990s. 

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