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On June the 23rd 2006 the
Dunbrody
will set out on her maiden
International voyage and this icon of Irish history under her cloud of
white canvas
will be coming to Hobbs Point Pembroke Dock. With a crew of
Pembrokeshire and Wexford sailors she will be coming to visit her second
home, the culmination of years of
modem day hard work in conjunction with a history of pain, anguish and
hardship.
Accompanied by the world renowned Dunbrody players she will be
open for visitors
to experience history first hand, taking a step back in time to those
darker days.
Later in the week she will be offering 60 sea-hardy souls a day
the opportunity of a
lifetime, to realise every childhood dream of sailing beneath those 110
foot masts and
their gleaming cloud of square sails on a voyage around the
Pembrokeshire coast.
So don't delay and miss this chance you hardy sailors and apply for this
once in a
lifetime opportunity to live your dream.
The original
Dunbrody was a 458 tonne three-masted barque, 176
feet (53.7 metres)
long and with a draft of 11.5 ft (3.5 m) she carried a sail area of
10,100 square ft. (c.
940 sq. m.). She was built in Quebec, Canada, for the Graves family of
New Ross.
Co. Wexford in 1845. The Dunbrody was primarily a cargo vessel and
carried timber
from Canada, cotton from the southern states of the USA and guano from
Peru. With
the advent of the devastating Irish potato famines, however, the ship
was fined out
with bunks and facilities for passengers desperate to escape the
harrowing conditions
at home. Between 1845 and 1870, from April to September, under the
command of
William John Williams from St. David's, The Dunbrody carried thousands
of
passengers, emigrants, to the New World. Normally carrying 176 people on
one
crossing, but at the height of the Famine in 1847, she carried as many
as 313.
The
Dunbrody Project involved the construction of a full-scale sea-going
replica of this
historic ship and with the help of the students and lecturers from
Pembrokeshire
College she was finished in early 2001. She was opened to visitors on
the 1st May
2001 and has been lying at the quayside in New Ross. Co. Wexford. In
July 2005 the
Tall Ships race was hosted by Waterford City and the Dunbrody was
invited to lead
the parade of sail at the start, so began her upgrade to full sea going
capability from
her life as a visitor centre, once again with the help of her friends in
Pembrokeshire
she achieved this. |
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