Round Britain boat crew battle broken bridge

The Bessie Ellen is facing a race against time to be ready for a tour

The crew of a ship, moored at Gloucester Docks, are facing a race against time to be ready for the start of an around Britain tour.

The expedition is due to begin later this month to mark the 120th anniversary of the Bessie Ellen, a traditional West Country trading ship.

Tall ships are currently unable to sail under The High Orchard Bridge, which takes traffic over the Gloucester and Sharpness canal.

The bridge cannot be lifted until repairs have been completed on cracks that were discovered in March during an inspection.

The High Orchard bridge is being repaired after cracks were found

The crew of the Bessie Ellen have brought in a crane to help take down all of the masts and rigging, which will be put back up once they get to the other side of the bridge.

Owner and Master, Nikki Alford, said: "High Orchard Bridge isn't so high to let us through. There is a five-metre clearance, which is fine for canal traffic, however, for tall ships like ours it is an unbelievably time consuming job.

"We will have to remove all the sails, rigging masts, booms, everything just to get under the bridge and then put them up as soon as we're through.

"I've got to leave on 19 April, the pilot is booked for the 20th at Sharpness. So it's a race against time.

"It's just one of the hazards of shipping and as we've seen the failure of bridges can have a catastrophic effect, as we saw in Baltimore recently. "

Nikki Alford said "safety has to come first"

Repairs to the bridge have been hampered by strong winds in recent days, which has also led to the bridge being closed to road traffic on several occasions.

Colin Brooks owns the Sula Lightship, which is also moored at the docks.

He said the closures have caused a fair amount of traffic chaos: "When they closed the bridge on Sunday it caused an awful lot of hassle in the area. Carnage was the word that was used because this was exasperated by a lack of warning signs.

"No one knew what was going on, the bridge was obviously shut for the right reasons no doubt, but the traffic had no idea where to go."

Colin Brooks said "carnage was the word being used"

In a statement the Canal and River Trust said it was "carrying out repairs to High Orchard Bridge, which carries St Ann Way over the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal".

"We expect the repairs to be completed by the end of the month, with the bridge returned to its original and fully operational condition," the statement added.

“We are sorry for the inconvenience that was caused earlier this week.  Safety is the priority, and with such high winds, it was necessary to temporarily close the bridge to traffic.

"With no further high winds forecast, we are not expecting any further disruption, unless required as part of the works, in which case we’d seek to do those works overnight.”