The Tom Clarke Bridge, otherwise known as the East Link, is a major road toll-lift river crossing in Dublin that opened for the arrival of a Danish fully-rigged tallship as it made an upriver transit on Tuesday morning (May 5th), writes Jehan Ashmore.
Moments before transiting the bascule bridge, the Class A three-masted tallship, Georg Stage, hosting 63 trainees onboard and 10 crew, was in close quarters to another visiting tallship, the Portuguese four-masted schooner, Santa Maria Manuela (as previously reported). It had earlier this morning berthed along the North Wall extension, just before the toll bridge.
With up to 44 fare-paying trainee guests onboard, the 89-year-old former North Atlantic cod-lugger, renovated in 2007 for passenger voyages with an environmental focus, made a daytime-only visit to the capital, as the 67 metre schooner is to depart late this afternoon, bound for Kirkwall, capital of the Orkney Islands.
As for the Georg Stage’s approach to the Tom Clarke Bridge, the road barriers came down, which suddenly ground the busy traffic to a halt on both sides of the Liffey, as marine traffic, in this context, is given priority. This had permitted unhindered access of the Georg Stage with its 23 metre masts to head through the gap in the bridge as the bascule toll-lift span was raised to its maximum vertical elevation.
Once within the quays of the Dublin Docklands, the port lifeboat was lowered onto the Liffey prior to turning around at Sir John Rogerson’s Quay. In addition, the stern-mounted launch was also lowered from the tallship built in 1934 at Frederikshavn.
Its operators, the Georg Stage Memorial Foundation, based at its homeport of Copenhagen, claim to be the oldest active training institution of its kind in the world. Over the decades, the 42 metre long tallship has also been among the few to have taken part in the inaugural Tall Ships' Race of 1956 and the 50th anniversary in 2006 and many others in between.
Georg Stage: Open to Public Tours
On the south banks of the Liffey, at Sir John Rogerson's Quay, the public are welcome to board the Georg Stage, where the trainees dressed in attire more akin to naval cadets, along with the crew, will provide tours today (1800-2000) and at the same time tomorrow, Thursday (7 May).
They had sailed directly from the Dutch port of Scheveningen, and prior to that, the trainees took part in a coastal introductory sail around Denmark involving a transit of the Kiel Canal in Germany. This was followed by the voyage to Ireland via the English Channel and the Celtic Sea before entering the Irish Sea, where it arrived to anchor in Dublin Bay at the weekend.
