Princess Royal sails in for city ceremony

Published on Monday 7 May 2007 12:08

THE Princess Royal is to perform the commissioning ceremony of the Northern Lighthouse Board's new ship NLV Pharos in Edinburgh this week.

The ship will be alongside the Cruise Liner Terminal at Leith for the ceremony, where it will also be blessed by the Reverend James MacDonald of Crieff Parish Church.

The Princess Royal, who named and launched the ship in February, became Patron of the Northern Lighthouse Board in 1993 and routinely spends time on the Board's vessels seeing the work that they do.

The 84-metre-long, 3672 tonne ship will work mainly in Scottish and Manx waters servicing over 200 automatic lighthouses, 157 buoys and 40 beacons.

NLV Pharos was built in Gdansk, Poland, and was specifically designed for the unique work carried out by the Northern Lighthouse Board.

She is fitted with the latest technological equipment including hydrographic surveying machines and wreck-finding equipment.

Following the commissioning ceremony on Wednesday, the NLV Pharos will stay in Leith until May 11, when she will set sail for her home port of Oban before heading to work at Dubh Artach Lighthouse on the west coast of Scotland.