2010 Summer Ball Report

Wildlife sighting in Dundee Docks:  An elephant in Unicorn.

Guests onboard for HMS Unicorn’s annual Summer Ball on Saturday were surprised by an african elephant which found its way onboard (see photo).  The elephant was later spotted dancing an eightsome reel.
 
Local wildlife breeder Geoffrey Bardsley remarked, “This is quite unusual.  Elephants don’t normally appear at sea this early in the year, and it’s the first time I have seen one dancing an eightsome reel”  Fellow dancer, Marianne Kenley suggested, “Unicorn had been scheduled for a cruise to Africa during the Summer Ball, and the elephant must have somehow found out.”
 
Unicorn Ball organiser Jenny Macrae added, “we’re quite used to camels finding their way onboard, but were horrified by the elephant, as we didn’t want it eating all our food.  We’d already been gatecrashed by a family of Hottentots from Fife and were worried there wouldn’t be enough pudding”
 
A spokesman for the Unicorn Preservation Society, which runs Unicorn said, “There was no real danger.  Unicorn was designed to carry 46 cast-iron cannon, each roughly the weight of a small elephant, so the ship has plenty of spare stability to carry quite a few elephants.”
 
The next public event onboard Unicorn will be ‘Iolanthe’, part of a series of annual Gilbert & Sullivan Afloat productions, and will run from 17-19 June.  Contact the ship (01382-200900) or website for details and tickets.

WRS 2010-0605