21 September 2007

LERWICK Port Authority is set to celebrate two major milestones with the 80th anniversary of cruise liners visiting the harbour next year, and the 1,000th liner making Lerwick its port of call, in 2009.

Since the 1990s, LPA has seen an upsurge in cruise ships choosing Shetland as a destination. The port now averages up to 50 vessels and 25,000 passengers in a season.

Port chief executive Sandra Laurenson said: “Both occasions will be significant milestones in the development of Lerwick as a port-of-call for cruise ships and we are already planning how to mark them.

“We will be encouraging operators to include Lerwick in their 2009 itineraries, with the prospect of being the 1,000th cruise vessel to visit since port records began.

“It will have taken more than 80 years to get to that figure, but probably will require only another two decades to double it to 2,000.”

Port authority records began in 1924 with the first entry for cruise ships on 17 July 1928 when the 675 ton Mira arrived from Kirkwall, in Orkney, carrying 112 members of the Old Norse Society of Bergen, Norway.

However, the port was most definitely playing host to cruise liners as early as the late 19th century. In 1894, local newspapers recorded two visits by the St Sunniva on her way from cruises in the Norwegian fjords.

The final cruise ship of the 2007 season, Black Watch, is due in Lerwick next Tuesday. This brings the year’s total to 42 vessels with a total number of passengers for the season at around 18,000.

Ms Laurenson said that these were fewer numbers than scheduled, but bad weather in various parts of the North Sea during the summer meant the itineraries of five vessels due to visit Lerwick had to be cancelled.

“The effects of bad weather this year were disappointing, but we are very encouraged by the early bookings for 2008. We are already up two on this time in 2006 at 35 and five up on the same point in 2005,” she said.