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Tall Ships make contact with International Space Station
Saturday, 15 August 2009
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The Maritime Festival went out of this world yesterday after sailors and astronauts exchanged insights into life at sea and in space during a live link up between Tall Ship crews and the International Space Station.
As part of a range of events on the second day of the Belfast Maritime Festival English, Dutch, French and Brazilian trainee crews who are docked in Belfast spoke to both cosmonauts and astronauts from Russia and NASA.
Russian Commander Grennadiy Padalka, Roman Romanenko (Russia), American Mike Barratt (NASA USA), Tim Copra (NASA USA) and Robert Thirsk (Canada) answered questions about the similarity between space sickness and sea sickness, keeping fit and how to brush teeth in zero gravity.
During the 15-minute chat, crews from around the world told the astronauts it was “an absolute privilege” to speak to them.
Meanwhile, the number of visitors to the festival are on schedule to attract 500,000 people.
Visitors braved the bad weather to get on board the magnificent Tall Ships, including the Bounty, Europa and the Cisne Branco.
Lord Mayor of Belfast Naomi Long said numbers have exceeded their “wildest expectations” with estimates of 140,000 for the first day.
“Today already, despite the weather, we have a fantastic turnout, with crowds lining the docks to view the majestic tall ships and enjoying the variety of entertainment and activities taking place,” she said.
“We would envisage that the total numbers for the first two days will exceed 200,000, with the full festival on target to attract half a million visitors.”
The Lord Mayor added: “We anticipate there will be several hundred thousand more people expected to attend over the weekend, especially at the Parade of Sail on Sunday afternoon. There have been lessons learned from the traffic management issues yesterday and we ask the public to be patient as we, and our partners in Translink and PSNI, are working hard to minimise disruption.”
Yesterday evening a colourful parade with 1,200 crew from all over the world was held which ended with prizes presented to the winning teams from the Tall Ships Atlantic Challenge 2009.
The Class B Dutch vessel Tecla vessel was confirmed as the overall winner of the Tall Ships |Atlantic Challenge, which saw the fleet cross the Atlantic from Halifax in Canada to Belfast. Brazillian ship the Cisne Branco was second and the Europa from the Netherlands was third.
Bernard Heppener, Tall Ships Atlantic Challenge chairman said the last race proved to be an excellent and exciting finale.
“At times there were storm force winds which provided the crews with a challenging time on board, particularly for the crews on the smaller vessels,” he said.
“All crew members now have a greater respect for nature and the ocean as well as having had the chance to get to know their own strengths and weaknesses and understand the meaning of teamwork. There is no doubt that they all enjoyed an amazing experience that they will remember for the rest of their lives.”
Following the prize giving a fireworks display lit up the sky to mark the end of the second day of the festival.
For more information log onto www.gotobelfast.com
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Quick links
For more Tall Ships news go to belfasttelegraph.co.uk/tallships
Event Map: What's on and where to find it
Order the programme here
What you can see today
Queens Quay
Funfair
Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Interactive Zone
Continental Market
BBC ‘Bang goes the Theory’
BBC Headroom
BBC Radio Ulster
BBC Community Bus
NIEA Expo
University of Ulster Coastal and Marine Research Exhibition
Facepainters, and Balloon Modellers
Laserquest for over 8’s
Climbing Wall
PM
Funfair
Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Interactive Zone
Continental Market
BBC ‘Bang goes the Theory’
BBC Headroom
BBC Radio Ulster
BBC Community Bus
NIEA Expo
University of Ulster Coastal and Marine Research Exhibition
Facepainters, and Balloon Modellers
Laserquest for over 8’s
Climbing Wall
Clarendon Dock
Continental Market
RNLI Interactive Zone
Inflatables
Climbing Wall
Sand Sculpture
Softplay area for under 5’s
Citybeat Young Star Search
Jo Jingles
Maritime crafts
PM
Continental Market
RNLI Interactive Zone
Inflatables
Climbing Wall
Sand Sculpture
Softplay area for under 5’s
Live music from the stage
Street Theatre – Look out for Magilligan Brothers
Sailability and RYA model yacht displays
Storytelling
Jo Jingles
Maritime crafts
Facepainters, Caricaturist and Balloon Modellers
Wii Fun
Albert Quay
AM
Funfair
Continental Market
PM
Funfair
Continental Market
UK Strongest Man
Royal Marine Band Performance
- Text Size
Having visited the site of the tallships on Saturday and not any actual ships as the queues were so long I was very disappointed. As a family we were really looking forward to boarding 1 or 2 of these macnificent vessels and when arrived at Clarendon Dock just before 10am on Saturday we were horrified to find long queues had alredy formed at any of the ships that were open and having spoke to some of the people I learnt they had already been there 2 hours . We have 3 young children and it would have been impossible to queue for this lentgh of time. The location at Clarendon Dock and the presence of a rubbish funfair blasting out music better suited to a nightclub were also disapointing. Clarendon Dock is after all the abandoned Stena Line Terminal and is not suited to this type of international event. The Odessy site was much better however the walk way between Clarendon Dock and Albert Quay was far to narrow for the volume of people.
Posted by EDWIN MCKEE | 16.08.09, 16:26 GMT