Talk about being out of touch, this happened 31st of January and had absolutely no clue until I came home and my parents had a discussion with me that went like this:
'Yeah we'd gone to see Riverdance the other day...'
'Riverdance?'
'You know, the ship that grounded'
'A ship grounded?'
'Yes!'
This was after they laughed at me for not knowing that girl was missing either (UKers will know the one I'm talking about
).
Anywho! I went yesterday and took some piccies, well, only managed three before my camera ran out of juice and they're all the same, so I'll only post one.
It's completely on it's side as you can see, the salvage people didn't do a very good job with it, gonna be stuck here for months now they reckon as it's sinking into the sand. Sadly there's a 500m exclusion zone otherwise it'd have been great to go right up to it, it's completely exposed when the tide is out
.
Here's a little article I found on it if anyone's interested:
» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «
QUOTE
The Seatruck ferry RIVERDANCE ran aground on Anchorsholme beach, Cleveleys (just north of Blackpool) shortly before midnight on 31st January. A Mayday was broadcast at about 7:30pm after cargo shifted and the RIVERDANCE began to list. This reached 60° but was later eased to 35° while she continued to drift. A freak wave had hit the vessel while in the relatively shallow 'Shell Flat' sandbank area, known for difficult sea conditions, about 10 miles WSW of Fleetwood. Weather conditions across northern Britain were atrocious, with winds of at least storm force; waves were reported to be in excess of 7m at the incident site.
The 6,041ton, 116m RIVERDANCE was travelling from Warrenpoint in Northern Ireland to Heysham, Lancs, a journey that the ferry normally undertakes each day. This ro-ro ferry carries up to 55 vehicles or trailers and 12 passengers.
The four passengers were initially airlifted to safety while the 19 crew managed the situation in a manner that drew accolades from the rescue services in the treacherous conditions; it is understood that they were also attempting to restart the engines. Liverpool Coastguard coordinated the rescue and assistance was provided by: rescue helicopters from RAF Valley, RNAS Prestwick and Dublin Coastguard; RNLI lifeboats from Lytham and Fleetwood; offshore support vessels Clwyd Supporter and Highland Sprite; and the Steersman oil products tanker. Ten of the crew were also airlifted from the vessel before it grounded and the remaining nine were taken off later. There were no significant injuries.
Attempts will be made to refloat the vessel when the weather improves, and tugs are standing by, but the outcome is uncertain. There are about 100 tonnes of bunker fuel oil and 50 tons of gas oil still on the vessel.
It's a bit old like, as I say they've not been able to refloat it and all the oil/gas has been removed, well, vast majority of it anyways.
So anyway, talk about how cool having a local shipwreck is and anything interesting that's happened in your area .Little Note: No one was actually harmed as a result of this shipwreck, so I'm not being sick or anything by treating it as a tourist attraction
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Edited by Eeyore, 17 March 2008 - 05:54 AM.
