gary the nurse Wrote:and didn't the ben beach up at heysham a little while ago when there was a low tide-isn't the mersey estuary likely to be of a similar shallow draught?and if it beaches in the mersey well thats the island with no sailings at all till it floats of again!

Shouldn't be a problem Gary. They'll be using the Twelve Quays landing stage that the Irish sailings use, and those boats are probably bigger than the Ben. They've had tankers and cruise liners the size of Belgium go up that channel.

Now I've said that they'll probably run it aground on one of the sand bars in the estuary!