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Displaying items by tag: Brocklebank

#PreservedTUG - Brocklebank, a preserved Liverpool based tug which is still in sea-going condition is to visit Dun Laoghaire Harbour next Monday (8 July), writes Jehan Ashmore.

The tug is to make an afternoon arrival and subject to tides, the vessel will be open to the public while alongside the East Pier jetty from 14.30hrs.

Brocklebank last worked on the Mersey 25 years ago and from where she spent her entire career for Alexandra Towing Company. Fittingly the vessel stills sports the old operator's distinctive yellow, white and black band funnel colours.

In 1964 she was laid down as one of a trio of sisters (Langton and Egerton) ordered from W.J. Harwood & Sons of Great Yarmouth. In the following year she was launched by Lady Pamela Brocklebank.

During the 1960's and 1970'S she served as a ship-handling tug which involved assisting numerous cargo-ships, passenger ships and naval vessels to their berths. On occasions this involved working in Heysham, Larne and Barrow where the tug engaged with ship launches from the Cumbrian port.

The tug was acquired by the Liverpool Maritime Museum in 1989 and since then has been lovingly restored by a group of volunteers at the Merseyside Maritime Museum.

She has visited many Irish Sea ports, transited Scotland's Caledonian Canal to reach England's North Sea ports as well France. In addition she is no stranger to Irish ports, having visited Belfast, Dublin, Arklow and Cork.

 

Coastal Notes Coastal Notes covers a broad spectrum of stories, events and developments in which some can be quirky and local in nature, while other stories are of national importance and are on-going, but whatever they are about, they need to be told.

Stories can be diverse and they can be influential, albeit some are more subtle than others in nature, while other events can be immediately felt. No more so felt, is firstly to those living along the coastal rim and rural isolated communities. Here the impact poses is increased to those directly linked with the sea, where daily lives are made from earning an income ashore and within coastal waters.

The topics in Coastal Notes can also be about the rare finding of sea-life creatures, a historic shipwreck lost to the passage of time and which has yet many a secret to tell. A trawler's net caught hauling more than fish but cannon balls dating to the Napoleonic era.

Also focusing the attention of Coastal Notes, are the maritime museums which are of national importance to maintaining access and knowledge of historical exhibits for future generations.

Equally to keep an eye on the present day, with activities of existing and planned projects in the pipeline from the wind and wave renewables sector and those of the energy exploration industry.

In addition Coastal Notes has many more angles to cover, be it the weekend boat leisure user taking a sedate cruise off a long straight beach on the coast beach and making a friend with a feathered companion along the way.

In complete contrast is to those who harvest the sea, using small boats based in harbours where infrastructure and safety poses an issue, before they set off to ply their trade at the foot of our highest sea cliffs along the rugged wild western seaboard.

It's all there, as Coastal Notes tells the stories that are arguably as varied to the environment from which they came from and indeed which shape people's interaction with the surrounding environment that is the natural world and our relationship with the sea.