There'll be some red faces in Moyle tonight

News has just reached me that the Etoile, one of the sailing ships in the Tall Ships Challenge, has run aground on a sandbar in the entrance to Ballycastle Harbour.

Who was the 'star' pilot who was guiding the vessel into the harbour?

Did someone forget to do a little dredging?

Was the Harbour Master there to throw them the end of his 'galluses'?

Does the MDC Harbour Authority deploy sufficient expertise?

I'm told by an eye-witness that the excitement happened around 7 pm and that the Etoile was eased from the sand after a few 5-10 minutes - but not before she was caught on candid camera.

She was keeled over just before she swung around, a bit faster ... eye witness

What an embarrassment for the local council after these fine craft had successfully overcome the challenges that the mighty Atlantic could throw at them.

The escapade reminded me of the late Sean Armstrong, sometime President of Queen's University Belfast Glee Club in the 1960s, and his stirring rendition of The Good Ship Calibar before a motley crew of students.

Adds Monday, August 10

It's been a most curious welcome for some of those crews that participated in the Tall Ships Challenge. I'm told that the welcome was not briefly discussed at a council meeting,

The Clerk stated that officers were seeking approval for arrangements to be put in place to facilitate a visit from a tall ship in Ballycastle.

After discussion, it was agreed that Ballycastle would like to host a tall ship for one or two nights prior to the planned event from 13th – 16th August. It was also agreed that a reception would be held for the crew and organisers and that excursions would be organised for the crew to see the area. - MDC minutes 6 April 2009.

that councillors had less than 24 hours notice of today's reception in the Mayor's Parlour and, apparently, not even an invitation to participate in a tour of the sailing ships with some senior council officials. The welcome banner above was hung on railings at the junction of Quay Road and Rathlin Road.

Following the reception the fifty or so strong party was taken to the Giant's Causeway, dropped off and picked up later. Perhaps with a little forward planning some multi-lingual folks from the Kingdom of Moyle could have offered linguistic hospitality to its international guests.

I can find no mention of this prestigious event - the Tall Ships Challenge - on the Moyle Council website.

Presumably our public representatives will be asking serious questions about the whole affair. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency has been looking at marine stories on NALIL blog for quite some time now but has proved to be something of a toothless tiger when it comes to representing the public interest.

Epic Landscapes, Fish and Chips and Sheep

Two Tall Ships crew members attacked in Ballycastle

Kevin McAuley's photos of the Tall Ships Europa and Etoile in Ballycastle Bay

Click on images to enlarge

Just another thousand years

On August 7th 2009... At 34 minutes and 56 seconds past 12... the time and date will read... 12:34:56 07/08/09 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 That's twice today but this won't happen again for another thousand years.

and not just in North Roscommon :)

PS Those white blobs on the horizon near Inishowen turned out not to be Tall Ships but merchant vessels. Hope you enjoy the real thing :)

Minister McGuinness misses 'Rathlin Rave'

It's been a busy few days in Ballycastle and Rathlin Island. The former had its Marconi Festival and the latter its Jigs in the Rigs Festival aka the Rathlin Rave.



Martin McGuinness, deputy First Minister in the Northern Ireland Executive, arrived back in Ballycastle aboard an unscheduled sailing of the Rathlin Express catamaran accompanied by what appeared to be some minders and the remnants of the Rathlin Rave and 'chaperoned' by Mary O'Driscoll, a director of Rathlin Island Ferry Limited. The Minister said that he'd had a very enjoyable visit to the island and I understand that one of his guides on the Puffin Tour was a RIFL skipper.

Waiting anxiously to greet the Minister on the quayside for the next part of his itinerary - a visit to the Corrymeela Centre - was the Rev Harold Good, sometime Corrymeela Centre Director and, more recently, a witness to the decommissioning of IRA arms. I say anxiously as the catamaran has been running well behind its advertised 20 minute crossing time and had broken down the previous Monday. There's a tale going round that someone forgot to switch on the water supply to the engines leading to overheating but that sounds a rather unlikely explanation for a modern £1.2 million craft.

I wonder if either Minister realised that Rathlin's Stone Age arms facility has never been 'decommissioned' - well, there are no photographs to prove it.

Adds August 3, 2009

Eye On The Hill has highlighted some disarray in the Declan O'Loan press release front; Declan is the SDLP MLA for North Antrim.

“Do a draft for me? Include some nice words about Rathlin.”

Well, the nice words didn't appear in the FIRST release but some of Declan's ditherings did. This is one for the political anoraks :)

I've posted the following to the Devenport Diaries:

Here's a line for you, Mark: "Who pays the ferryman?".

The DFM travelled on an unscheduled crossing on a quiet August Monday on a publicly subsidised life-line ferry.There appeared to be no OFMDFM staff or other SF elected representatives. Martin and the Minders were too late to have appeared as a support act in the week-end's 'Rathlin Rave'.