WATCH: Boat has lucky escape after getting stuck under Limerick bridge
A PASSENGER boat had a lucky escape after getting stuck underneath the Abbey Bridge in Limerick city.
The Tubaro Do Mar sails under the Portuguese flag and was looking to depart the city earlier this Saturday afternoon and enlisted the help of two smaller boats to guide it up the Abbey River, under the low bridges that line the river in the city.
“It was a tough job now to tell the truth,” Corbally boatman Pat Lysaght said. Pat was on one of the boats guiding the boat up the river.
With the help of the two boats, the larger boat was guided up the Abbey River past Matthew and Baals Bridges.
“We thought Baals Bridge was going to be the troublesome one. We measured it out and we were left with three inches to play around with,” Mr Lysaght said.
It was when they came to the Abbey Bridge just outside the Absolute Hotel that the crew came into a “bit of a glitch” as Mr Lysaght called it.
The boat was a catamaran with a gap in the middle that allowed water to rush through the middle.
This pulled the boat over to the Clare Street side of the bridge where it got stuck.
“We were lucky. We didn’t want the tide the come back in,” Mr Lysaght said.
According to Mr Lysaght the crew aboard the catamaran were eager to leave the city as they needed to get to Killaloe by tonight so the timing wasn’t great but they did their best.
It only took a quarter of an hour to get the boat through the bridges before it got to Ardnacrusha and off up the river towards Killaloe.
VIDEO: SEAN RYAN