The first ever Dublin City Council Liffey Festival, which combined visiting tall ships of varying classes and sizes, along with quayside-held events, took place at the weekend, writes Jehan Asmore.
The mostly free-of-charge two-day festival organised by DCC was for all and children alike, which drew in visitors on both sides of the Liffey lining the quays of the Docklands Quarter. Among the crowd pullers was live music held on board the timber decks of the regular port of call tall ship, Pelican of London, where the public appreciated the quayside of Sir John Rogerson’s Quay.
Other events were in place on the North Quays of the Liffey, though one tall ship was to berth on the North Wall but did not attend, as highlighted further below.
T/S Gunilla (Sweden)
T/S Gunilla (Sweden)
The largest visitor to the festival, the Swedish-flagged Class A three-masted bark, T/S Gunilla, was thronged with visitors. The one-time motor cargo vessel built in 1940 at Oskarshamn, in the same Scandinavian state, also acted as a domestic ferry and is now a trainee school ship based at its homeport of Öckerö (off Göteborg) and managed by Öckerö Shipping, which has vessels responsible for car ferry services in the Öckerö municipality on behalf of Västtrafik, as well as freight traffic and maintenance of ferry berths.
Afloat tracked Gunilla’s passage prior to the festival, from Lerwick, Shetland Islands, and also from the capital, another Nordic nation’s tallship, and also Class A, the Sorlandet, arrived onto Dublin Bay yesterday to take anchorage of Scotsman Bay, near Dun Laoghaire Harbour.
STV Klevia (Wales)
STV Klevia (Wales)
The oldest visitor to the festival, the almost 90-year-old, Welsh-based Class B gaff-ketch Klevia, is operated by Anglesey Traditional Sail, at Port Penrhyn, Abercegin, near the Menai Strait and Bangor. Likewise, Gunilla, which was built in Scandinavia in 1937 at Esbjerg, Denmark, had served as a fishing vessel in the North Sea. It is seen departing the Liffey yesterday evening, and Afloat has since tracked this morning off Beaumaris, Anglesey, facing its mainland homeport.
STV Pelican of London (England)
STV Pelican of London (England)
The Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, based Class A barquentine Pelican of London is a regular caller to Dublin and Irish shores, given its sail training vessel (STV) partnership programme role with the Sail Training Ireland, available to people of all backgrounds and abilities, with an emphasis on 14–30-year-olds from the island of Ireland, but also to protect and foster our maritime heritage through such programmes that also act as a stepping-stone into employment, particularly in the maritime sector.
Likewise of Klevia, it originally served as a trawler, having been built in 1948 as the Le Pelican, but based in far distant waters of the Arctic, which was followed by trading as a coaster under the name Kadett until the mid-1990s before its conversion to its present-day role, which includes ocean-based science voyages.
Festival Flotilla Finale
The snaps were taken yesterday late afternoon, on the festival’s concluding day, where a ‘Festival Flotilla Finale’ along the Liffey’s quays marked the end of the river- and maritime-themed festival. The event involved privately owned yachts ‘dressed overall’ to add to the nautical celebration of sail, and motor cruisers and other miscellaneous craft took part.
Also joining the tall ships was the Revenue Customs brand-new cutter R.C.C. Cosaint, which too was open to public tours, which Afloat will have more to cover.
They had sailed across the Irish Sea from Wales and from further foreign shores, Sweden via the Shetland Isles. From where also another Nordic nation tall ship, Sorlandet, from Norway, had made a call to the Lerwick, the island's capital, before taking anchorage in Dublin Bay off Dun Laoghaire yesterday.
However, one of the listed visiting tall ships scheduled to attend the festival did not materialise. The trainee vessel, TV Maybe, which Afloat tracked prior to the festival, having departed Cork Harbour, followed by an anchorage call in Dungarvan Bay and an en route call to Arklow, before crossing the Irish Sea.
As of late this morning, Maybe made a Merseyside arrival with a passage up river.
