H&W may build clipper

Plans to construct Belfast’s first tall ship could breathe new life into the local shipbuilding industry, an officially commissioned report on the project has found. A business plan for the venture, which would take three years to complete and would cost around £17 million, has been drawn up as the centre piece of imaginative efforts to regenerate Belfast’s Titanic Quarter in Northern Ireland.

The report was commissioned by Belfast City Council and the Department of Social Development as well as other Government agencies and has concluded that the project appears “feasible and viable” if conditions surrounding funding and the operation of the vessel are met.

The idea is the brainchild of Belfast engineer Anthony Smyth, who believes the vessel, based upon the 1874 square rigged clipper ?Belfast?, which was built at Harland and Wolff in Belfast, could be used as a training ship for sailors, participate in Tall Ships? events and attract visitors while at its dockside berth. “The original Belfast was described as one of the finest and fastest clippers ever built. The new Belfast will be the flagship for our city and country,” he said. It will be the first Cape Horn clipper built anywhere for more than a century. The council hopes to bring the Tall Ships to Belfast in 2009 and, if the project starts immediately, the promoter said the ?Belfast? could lead the fleet into port.

This year’s report said a design study was needed to determine the ship’s build cost.

“It will be essential that the ship receive substantial public support,” the consultants’ paper said. It added that private finance was essential but noted that, if properly run, the ship would make a substantial operating profit during its first and subsequent years of use.