Disappointment as Sail 8 anti-poverty protest sinks

WHILE Live 8 organisers basked in the huge success of Saturday’s worldwide concerts, Sail 8 was fizzling out in a damp squib.

A tiny band of boats sailed into Portsmouth yesterday after completing a symbolic voyage across the English Channel in support of the Live 8 protest.

The final number of yachts fell far short of the 73 expected to take part in the Sail 8 flotilla announced by Bob Geldof and Dame Ellen MacArthur last month. And the aim of bringing French campaigners back to join the G8 protest in Edinburgh also proved over-ambitious after nobody turned up to accept the free lift.

Bob Geldof, who was expected at Portsmouth to meet the boats, also cancelled earlier in the day. In fact there were more journalists in the greeting party than Sail 8 participants.

Organisers at the dockyard in Portsmouth, which this weekend is hosting the International Festival of the Sea, where the three yachts and a motor boat berthed, tried to hide their disappointment by saying the journey was meant merely as a symbolic part of the awareness-raising campaign.

Spokesman Don Brind said: “It is disappointing, but, trying not to be negative about it, we see it as part of the overall Make Poverty History campaign.”