One man has been arrested after a boat was stolen on the Liffey in Dublin earlier today.
Four middle-aged men took small sailboat from Poolbeg Marina at around 6am this morning.
They proceeded to sail the boat up and down the Liffey in an ‘erratic manner’, according to the Dublin Fire Brigade.
Gardaí, the Dublin Fire Brigade River Rescue Team, Dun Laoghaire Lifeboat, and the Coastguard all went to bring the river joy ride to an end, but the men taunted the emergency services personnel as their antics blocked shipping lanes east of the Eastlink Bridge.
“When they began to go into shipping lanes and interfere with the manoeuvring of a cruise ship, it got more serious,” Donal Petherbridge, district officer at Dublin Fire Brigade at Tara Street, told the Independent.
“They appear to have been drinking and none of them were wearing life-jackets,” he said.
“These were not young men. One of them was certainly no spring chicken and appeared to be aged in his 60s.”
Three of the men managed to flee as the boat stopped at various points along the river while the fourth man continued to sail the boat alone before giving himself up to the authorities at Sir John Roberson’s Quay.
He was then arrested.
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