Huge marker buoy washes up on Wexford beach

Over the years, there’s been some curious discoveries on Wexford’s sandy shores. From the unusual to the bizarre, you’d never know what you might find washed up while taking a stroll around our coast.

That was certainly the case this week for Owen Dunbar. While taking the sea air on the beach at Seafield, Ballymoney in North Wexford, he was confronted by a huge metal buoy which had washed up at the water’s edge, which it emerged had travelled quite a long distance.

Curiosity getting the better of him, Owen took a closer look and found the brand name WET TECH, an American manufacturing company, and a serial number and decided to do a bit of investigating.

His findings were amazing. “I emailed WET TECH to see if this (buoy) was one of theirs,” he explained. “I got a reply from a Mr Todd Carl, Operations Manager at WET TECH, who are based in Youngsville, Louisiana in the USA.

“Todd replied to say that it was indeed one of their marker buoys and this one was manufactured in 2005 and was moored in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico as a marker on a downed oil platform, caused by Hurricane Katrina.”

Mr Carl went on to explain that the huge buoy had apparently broke its moorings back in 2007. The company realised it was missing when they went out to service it and, as it had no GPS tracker, they never knew what happened to it.

“So Todd estimates that the buoy has been drifting at sea for 17 years and probably got caught on the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic drift sending it across the ocean towards Ireland before beaching itself at Seafield Ballymoney Co Wexford,” Owen explains.

“I’d guess in 17 years it probably passed Ireland maybe at least once before.”

Locals were amazed at Owen’s findings and that this huge metal buoy had travelled such distance and had drifted for so long. Many are now calling for it to be properly recovered and made into a feature, with a plaque telling the story of its transatlantic journey.