Donald Attig

[citation needed]Donald Attig established three World Class Benchmark records in the Adventure, Endurance, and Challenge categories.

[3][4][5][6] During the 5,000 mile experience, he developed and honed the skills which decades later would carry him to his World Class Benchmark record efforts.

For years, Attig and Omar offered free sailing excursions on the schooner for at-risk youth of any religion from Northern Ireland.

[citation needed] These three distinct and different World-Class Benchmark establishing record efforts, when combined, involved moving over one ton of live aboard boat and gear over 600 miles (almost 1,000 kilometers) without an engine.

[citation needed] The engineless transit, from the start of the Shannon Navigation at the Inishmagrath marker, on Lough Allen, in County Leitrim to the end of Shannon Navigation at Killaloe, County Clare and beyond to the Port of Tarbot in the Sea Estuary, required dealing with 33 bridges, 6 locks, and nine lakes, without the mechanical power.

Most of that was in a zig-zag pattern due to the wind resistance of the large topside area and almost flat box type bow of the one-ton plus of live-aboard boat and gear.

Donald Attig and Jack Donovan started their benchmark establishing effort on June 29, 2007, at Cormongan beach on Lough Allen at 10 A.M.

The Irish Coast Guard attempted to dissuade the pair from continuing on past the end of the navigation marker at the Killaloe Bridge.

They dropped anchor in the bay of the sea port of Tarbert, County Kerry at 8 P.M. on August 8, establishing the final Benchmark records of their effort.

Senior Citizens Jack Donovan and Donald Attig were the first crew to transit the entire River Shannon Navigation and beyond in an engineless boat with full live-aboard capability.

[24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31] Donald Attig became the first person to complete the entire River Erne Navigation single-handed in an engineless live aboard boat.

In the same year, the IWAI Cruising Club formally welcomed the boat into Foynes harbor, as it returned after completing the Benchmark establishing efforts at Tarbert.

Attig designed the system and produced the first small panels in his plastic company located on Route 66 at Pontiac, Illinois.

Then, he produced full-sized molds and directed the production of the prototype in the Dura Plex Industries Plant located in Herrin, Illinois.