Drunken skipper almost hit oil refinery

A TRAWLER skipper was so drunk at the helm he zigzagged his way across a harbour and narrowly avoided ploughing into a main fuel supply line at Ireland’s only refinery.

The fisherman yesterday became the first person in the country to be convicted of being drunk in charge of a vessel following evidence which a district court judge described as a chilling incident.

Captain Michael McCarthy, deputy harbour master at the Port of Cork, said on the night of December 8 last, port operations personnel noticed the 30ft trawler Silver Harvest steering erratically around the harbour.