Man finds model boat from Ireland on the beach

SUNSET BEACH, NC (WWAY) — The distance from the coast of Ireland to Sunset Beach is more than 3000 miles. Despite the long journey, a miniature boat found its way to our shores through the Atlantic. Rex Wray through it was impossible until he discovered Roisin.

“The longer I had it, the more interesting it became. It’s really unique as you can see. It was not tattered. Hardly any damage to it whatsoever,” Wray said.

He found the boat early one October morning. He took it back home, cleaned it up and found an e-mail on the boat. Furthermore, the e-mail belonged to Erik Bellamy, the creator of the boat from England.

“He gave me a lot of the history on it and I was just stunned. It was unbelievable that such a small object could make it all the way from Ireland to Sunset Beach, North Carolina,” Wray said.

Bellamy told him the boat is part of a bigger project, modeled after message in a bottle. It traveled to many location like Canada, the St. Lawrence Seaway  and Little River. Wray says it’s still too hard to believe.

“My first instinct was to keep the boat. Put it in like a shadow box and mount it on the wall because it was so interesting and then I felt sorry for Erik Bellamy because he put so much time into this project.”

Wray says his job now is to get the boat prepared to sail it back out into the water, to keep the project going.

“I feel that it’s Erik’s, it’s his project and you know, keep it going as long as it will go. If it went this far, God only knows how far that can go,” Wray said.

This is just one of 20 boats sailed out from 2006 up to now. The boats are completely made out of recycled materials.