ON Tuesday of last week many people were looking out to sea watching the Tall Ship Belem, a French registered craft, under sail, writes West Bay correspondent Philip Ringer.

The vessel dropped anchor just outside the harbour entrance overnight.

The ship has a maximum of 22 sails amounting to an impressive 1000.5 square metres of canvas and was originally launched on June 10, 1896.

This three-masted barque was built by Chanteres Adolphe Dubigean in Nantes.

As last week was the national ‘drive your classic to work’ week under the auspices of Classic Car weekly magazine, I was on the lookout for classic cars.

It was a treat to see a 1971 registered Saab 99 in West Bay Road one afternoon and then a Lotus Esprit outside the kiosks on Sunday, but this week’s greatest claim must surely be the Chevrolet Corvette parked on the Mound.

I am not sure about its exact date of registration, but these marvellous automobiles are really worth admiring.

However, on Thursday back in the USA, 2,000 Corvettes were being held at the GM Plant at Bowling Green in Kentucky with an apparent fault to the air bag system.

On Wednesday afternoon the harbour master’s boat was involved in the recovery of a ‘day fisher’ that had gone on to the rocks off Golden Cap after losing power.

The journey back to the safety of the harbour took an hour and a half with a strong sea running and a head wind. Ben Harvey, one of the harbour assistants, was responsible for the recovery of the vessel.

Scaffolding has surrounded the roof of the harbourmaster’s office and we can expect to see work on replacing and renewing the roof during the week.

Last Friday I met with an officer from the county highways department and representatives from the traffic management consultancy they have engaged to carry out a safety audit concerning the ‘enhancements’.

They were handed the figures of traffic counts around the ‘new’ priority at the Station Road junction on behalf of the West Bay Community Forum and we await the result of their deliberations with interest.