#OnTV – It may be the final episode of 'Ade to Sea' (tomorrow, Thursday on UTV at 8.30pm) however England's North West and notably the Manchester Ship Canal are to feature topics, among them those previously covered on Afloat.ie, writes Jehan Ashmore.
Asides the Guinness ships that once crossed the Irish Sea, the Manchester Ship Canal for example is where currently Kelloggs cereals are carried on the Coastal Deniz, a sister of containership Arslan II (formerly Coastal Isle) and having grounded off Arklow Bank in January. Following dry-docking in Dublin Port, Arslan II arrived in Turkish waters earlier this month.
Both sisters in recent years operated Coastal Container Line's Liverpool-Dublin service, in which the Peel Ports Group (owners of Liverpool Port) still operate the MTL container facility located beside the Poolbeg Yacht and Boat Club's marina. The Liffey-Mersey service is now run by BG Freightline.
Ade to Sea is presented by the comedian, Ade Edmondson, who over the last six episodes has set out to sail and explore Britain's maritime past and present and tomorrow night's broadcast, will see him head down the River Mersey to Liverpool.
The north western English port in the early 19th century represented forty per cent of the world's trade, and made Liverpool the busiest and most advanced port in the entire world. The present day port is undergoing a major development of a new riverside container terminal named Liverpool2.
Ade starts his journey at Eastham where the Manchester Ship Canal connects with the River Mersey. The ship canal transformed Manchester from a landlocked city into the third busiest port in Britain.
Also Ade explores the vital role of the tugboat, which towed large cargo ships up the narrow and shallow waters. He meets three generations of one family who run the tugboat business on the ship canal today and joins them as they tow a three thousand ton container vessel (the Coastal Deniz as pictured above) down the historic waterway.
Once back in Liverpool, Ade boards a triple masted topsail schooner, the Kathleen and May in which Afloat.ie has reported on. Tall ships like these made transatlantic journeys during 1800s.
Ade joins Scouser, Hughie Jones at sea to learn about how shanties or working songs were sung on the old boats that sailed out of Liverpool.
To learn more about what's happening off the north-west coast today Ade travels out eleven miles to sea where they're in the middle of building one of the largest wind farms in the world, Gwynt Y Mor.
The new wind-powered electricity generating facility is serviced by support vessels from Mostyn and offshore of Rhyl is the wind-farm's very own floating accommodation vessel, the Wind Solution.
For the last two years hundreds of people have been involved in preparing for one hundred and sixty wind turbines to be installed. Ade joins the men and women working on the wind farm overnight to get a rare insight into what it's like to work and live at sea.
