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Displaying items by tag: Giants Rigs

#BelfastGiants - Belfast City residents and those living alongside the lough may have noticed a new hulk which sailed into the city recently, reports the News Letter.

A large oil rig, called the Borgny Dolphin, has docked at Harland and Wolff (H&W).

It comes just months after the leviathan-sized Blackford Dolphin which was reported on Afloat.ie, sailed out of the harbour, after many months of valuable re-fit work at the ship repair yard.

However, at the moment the H&W is not planning to do any work on the new arrival.

Instead it is simply laid up after its contract in the North Sea finished – effectively using H&W as a giant parking space while its operators figure out what to do with her next.

It could be months before a decision is made, said the firm.

 

Published in Belfast Lough

About Commander Bill King, Solo Circumnavigator

William Donald Aelian King was the last surviving submarine commander in the Second World War - in charge of the British Navy's T-class Telemachus that sank a Japanese sub in the Strait of Malacca, between Malaysia and Sumatra, in 1944.

Decorated many times for his service by the end of the war, King became a trailblazing solo sailor.

At the age of 58, he was the oldest participant in The Sunday Times Golden Globe Race sailing Galway Blazer II, a junk-rigged schooner he designed himself.

After a number of abortive attempts, including an incident with "a large sea creature", he finally completed his solo circumnavigation of the globe in 1973.

Beyond his aquatic escapades, King settled with his wife Anita (who died in 1984, aged 70) at Oranmore Castle outside Galway after the war, where he later developed a pioneering organic farm and garden to help tackle his wife's asthma.

The round-the-world sailor and Galway native Bill King died on Friday, 21 September, 2012, aged 102.