DISGRUNTLED and disappointed the holders of the precious National Lottery tickets to go on board the USS John F. Kennedy could hardly believe their ears.
They arrived at Dun Laoghaire yesterday to be told they could not be brought aboard "Big John" because of bad weather conditions.
It was left to USS JFK operations officer Moe Joyce to explain.
The flight deck of the ship, he said, extends significantly out beyond the hull so a breasting barge had been attached to the side of the ship so it would not be damaged by the vessels.
"In a perfect world, you would get off the ferry onto the barge and up on to the ship. But things are not perfect out there. The sea has made it very, very difficult."
A decision had to be made at 3.39 a.m. to remove the side barge which had caused a couple of "superficial holes" in the sheet metal of the ship.
"It was clear that we were not going to be able to use this barge to move people back and forth to the ship. So we thought we've got people and we've got ferries; if we can't get them on board we will bring them as close as we possibly can. That is what we are doing today."
And that is just what almost 6,000 people did. They got to circle the giant aircraft carrier in a ferry, with crew members on board doing their best to explain what lay beyond the grey hull. Afterwards, many said they were disappointed, particularly those who had travelled from outside of Dublin. Some had taken days off work or postponed holidays.
"It's hard to imagine how they could have so much difficulty. They had months to plan this and with any event planned in Ireland you have to take the weather into account. All we got was a trip around the ship," said Gerry Barry from Foxrock.
. A spokesman for the Irish Marine Emergency Service pointed out early this morning that a 300 yard exclusion zone existed around the JFK, for security reasons, and that all unauthorised craft were prevented from breaching it.
The exclusion zone, which would remain in existence for the duration of the carrier's visit, was patrolled by the Irish naval vessel, the LE Aisling, and associated small craft.