A four-man yacht crew due to arrive in Limerick next weekend from Belleek, Co Fermanagh, will be the first to combine a trip on the 300-mile inland waterways system with an ocean voyage.
The four yachtsmen are using two vessels to complete a trip to New York, using a 23-foot Sarabandito yacht with a lift keel to get from Belleek to Leitrim village in Co Leitrim. Yesterday they were to sail from Belleek and this weekend will crew a sister yacht, a 33-foot maxi called the Sarabande, which is due in Limerick on Thursday as part of the Expo 2001 celebrations.
Using the new navigation system on the Shannon, which incorporates a weir, the Sarabande will also be one of the first vessels to avail of the city's new marina facilities. "To go from the Atlantic right up to Enniskillen and Belleek in Northern Ireland, through Killaloe and Athlone, will be possible this year," the Mayor, Mr John Ryan, said.
In Limerick, the Sarabande, a Spanish name meaning "slow dance", will change its rigging for the ocean-going voyage which will bring them to New York on July 4th, Independence Day. Mr Liam Kearns, the skipper, a sculptor from Whitegate, Co Clare, said he had used old navigation maps and taken advantage of sections of the river being in flood or higher than normal to bring the Sarabande upriver to Leitrim.
The smaller vessel was necessary between Belleek and Leitrim because the maximum draught, or depth of the boat underwater, is 4 feet along that stretch. The larger Sarabande has a 5-1/2-foot draught. "They reckoned we would never get it as far as Portumna," Mr Kearns said.
Belleek Pottery and Waterways Ireland, the cross-Border body with responsibility for the canals and navigable rivers, are some of the sponsors of the £250,000 project. The Belleek to Limerick cruise involves a trip of about 300 miles with the second leg of the trip amounting to about 3,500 miles.
The project was conceived three years ago when Mr Kearns was on honeymoon in Enniskillen. He learned of the reopened Shannon-Erne waterway which made it technically possible to sale from the lower Erne to the Atlantic. Mr Michael Flynn, another of the crew members, said the crew would be presenting a Belleek Pottery plate to Senator Hillary Clinton in New York. "Let's just hope we don't break it," he said.