As `Golden Apple' gets to Australia Simon Coveney is taking off for Belarus

Rough "mallet" treatment. That's how the indefatigable Adi Roche describes one of the next legs in the fund-raising voyage which the Coveney family of Cork is undertaking for her Chernobyl Children's project.

This leg is not by boat, however, and it is something of a solo run. Golden Apple, the family ketch, has just arrived in Cairns, Australia, and its former skipper, Simon Coveney, is departing for Belarus with 160 children next week.

The 26-year-old agricultural science graduate cut short his participation in the global circumnavigation following his father's death in March. When his three brothers, Rory (24), Andrew and Tony (21) and sister Rebecca (19) returned to the boat in May, he stayed back to oversee management of the family's 250-acre farm in Minane Bridge. There has also been speculation that he might take on his father's political mantle, given the impending by-election in Cork South Central. "Still considering" is his official comment.

A few days ago, while manning the Sail Chernobyl stand at Ford Cork Week, he was given an ultimatum. Travel to Belarus to see how the funds raised will be spent, Ms Roche suggested. The journey wouldn't even cost anything; he could return with the children who have been on holiday in Ireland over the past month.

It was a similar visit last year by his younger brother - and now skipper - Rory that forged the family's commitment to the venture in the first place.

Such was the late Hugh Coveney's enthusiasm for the idea of raising £1 million for the project that he offered to pay all the costs of the circumnavigation, in addition to signing over his boat. It means that every penny raised by Sail Chernobyl goes directly to the children irradiated in the nuclear disaster of 1986. Last week's presence at Ford Cork Week raised £6,500 in T-shirt and raffle ticket sales and was given a significant boost when Cork-born international yachtsman Harold Cudmore donated the £18,000 Ford Puma car which he won in his yacht, Barlo Plastics, to the charity.

The packed itinerary in Belarus will include visits to several orphanages backed by the Irish project, such as Novinki, some five kilometres from the capital, Minsk. It houses youngsters to 16year-olds, many of whom were abandoned by parents who could not handle the emotional turmoil of a damaged child.

One of the project's main aims is to change the attitude of the staff towards the children's disabilities, while also carrying out structural work to make the building more accessible by wheelchair. "Our initial commitment here is five years, based on the money we raise from the sail. Our aim is to get those children whose only four walls are those of a cot to touch grass, feel the earth, and to live." Simon will meet farmers whose lives changed dramatically as a result of the disaster and families who are trying to eke out an existence as evacuees from their own land. Ironically, the rest of his family are currently in a part of the world where nuclear testing has done untold damage to marine life.

Golden Apple berthed at a marina in Cairns, Australia, last Saturday after a nine-day haul from the Pacific republic of Vanuatu. It had dropped anchor in Vanuatu's capital, Port Vila, on July 4th, after an exhilarating and exhausting approach with their mother, Mrs Pauline Coveney, and youngest sibling, David, on board.

"When the wind came, it really came," Rory recounted. "One minute we are screaming at the sky for some more, and the next we are thundering down huge waves with our oilskins on. The highlight of that day was sighting a huge whale "surfing in the waves next to us for a brief few seconds".

Cannibalism was recorded as recently as 1969 in the Pacific republic, which has 105 languages among a population of only 150,000. Most of the islands "have their own distinct customs and artistic styles", Andrew recorded, with sorcery prevailing in some non-Christian parts.

"A woman is sometimes given the huge honour of having a front tooth removed in a public ceremony, which involves her having to slaughter several pigs with her bare hands and then have her tooth smashed out with a rock" by the village dentist - "which may take a few hours".

They left Vanuatu later that week, with Mrs Coveney and son, David, flying on to Cairns to meet them and to rendezvous with her eldest son, Patrick.

The Sail Chernobyl website is on http://aardvark-ipl.com/ccp/sail-chernobyl, and donations, which go directly to the Chernobyl Children's Project, can be made to account No 11100050 at Allied Irish Banks, South Mall, Cork.