I've put money in the buckets and will continue to do so. In fact everyone appears to be giving generously to what is a good cause, and credit to the Steam Packet for collecting.

But...

The Manannan has a capacity of 850 passengers and crew and the Ben 666. Let's assume that's a capacity of 1,400 passengers and 2 sailings for each vessel per day over the fortnight. That's a maximum capacity over the TT fortnight of 39,200 individual journeys.

Let's now also assume for the first week return sailings are only at 20% capacity. So we have 19,600 outward passengers and 11,760 returns (the rest returning after TT fortnight when I don't know if collections are made). That's a total of 31,360 individual journeys so only around 50 pence donated per passenger per journey.

I accept that some are kids who probably won't contribute, and that if you only donate all your loose change it might not add up to very much on occasions, but I think we could do much better. Let's dig a little deeper next year and make sure it tops £20k.