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Displaying items by tag: ships to return

Since the start of the year, the Naval Service, which was only able to have in operation a single patrol ship within Irish waters, could have two more vessels made available within a matter of weeks.

Due to a combination of not having key crew and mechanical issues, this has severely impacted the operations and ability of the Cork Harbour-based Naval Service. As only a single vessel has been dispatched from the naval base on Haulbowline to carry out key duties that cover drug interception duties, fishery stock monitoring, as well as (SAR) search and rescue.

According to Michael O’Sullivan, the former director of Europe’s Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre, Narcotics MAOC (N), based in Lisbon, Portugal, said “by not resourcing our navy, we have handed the keys of the country over to the drug cartels to do with us what they wish.”

According to the Irish Examiner, which has more on the story, a second of its larger ships, possibly the OPV80 P50 class LÉ Niamh, could return to patrol service within the next few weeks.

Published in Naval Visits

Coastal Notes Coastal Notes covers a broad spectrum of stories, events and developments in which some can be quirky and local in nature, while other stories are of national importance and are on-going, but whatever they are about, they need to be told.

Stories can be diverse and they can be influential, albeit some are more subtle than others in nature, while other events can be immediately felt. No more so felt, is firstly to those living along the coastal rim and rural isolated communities. Here the impact poses is increased to those directly linked with the sea, where daily lives are made from earning an income ashore and within coastal waters.

The topics in Coastal Notes can also be about the rare finding of sea-life creatures, a historic shipwreck lost to the passage of time and which has yet many a secret to tell. A trawler's net caught hauling more than fish but cannon balls dating to the Napoleonic era.

Also focusing the attention of Coastal Notes, are the maritime museums which are of national importance to maintaining access and knowledge of historical exhibits for future generations.

Equally to keep an eye on the present day, with activities of existing and planned projects in the pipeline from the wind and wave renewables sector and those of the energy exploration industry.

In addition Coastal Notes has many more angles to cover, be it the weekend boat leisure user taking a sedate cruise off a long straight beach on the coast beach and making a friend with a feathered companion along the way.

In complete contrast is to those who harvest the sea, using small boats based in harbours where infrastructure and safety poses an issue, before they set off to ply their trade at the foot of our highest sea cliffs along the rugged wild western seaboard.

It's all there, as Coastal Notes tells the stories that are arguably as varied to the environment from which they came from and indeed which shape people's interaction with the surrounding environment that is the natural world and our relationship with the sea.