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Displaying items by tag: Minister or Defence

The Captain and the of Asgard II are highly praised for their professionalism in today's publication of the Marine Casualty Investigation Board's report of the investigation into the loss of the sail training vessel "Asgard II".

The impact assumption and liferaft issue in the report are already issues known about for some time.

The vessel which sank in the Bay of Biscay on 11 September 2008 while on route to La Rochelle, France was carrying 5 crew and 20 trainees.

All on board were evacuated safely from the vessel and transferred to the ships life rafts where they were brought to the island of Bel Ille by the French coastguard.

Minister or Defence, Mr. Tony Killeen commented that while the findings into the cause of the sinking are inconclusive it recognises that the vessel was equipped and maintained in excess of the statutory requirements and that higher safety standards were in place on the ship which were above those required by legislation.

The Minister also noted that the report acknowledges the leadership shown by the ship's Master, Colm Newport and he commended his and the crew's handling of the emergency situation.

The full report is available for download below.

Click this link for all Afloat's coverage of Asgard II's sinking, and the plans to raise, dive and replace her

Raise the Asgard - Afloat's 2008 online petition
Published in Asgard II

William M Nixon has been writing about sailing in Ireland and internationally for many years, with his work appearing in leading sailing publications on both sides of the Atlantic. He has been a regular sailing columnist for four decades with national newspapers in Dublin, and has had several sailing books published in Ireland, the UK, and the US. An active sailor, he has owned a number of boats ranging from a Mirror dinghy to a Contessa 35 cruiser-racer, and has been directly involved in building and campaigning two offshore racers. His cruising experience ranges from Iceland to Spain as well as the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, and he has raced three times in both the Fastnet and Round Ireland Races, in addition to sailing on two round Ireland records. A member for ten years of the Council of the Irish Yachting Association (now the Irish Sailing Association), he has been writing for, and at times editing, Ireland's national sailing magazine since its earliest version more than forty years ago