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Displaying items by tag: 100 plus rescued off Libya

#100rescued - Naval Service patrol ship LÉ Samuel Beckett this morning rescued more than 100 people, including two children, from an inflatable craft off the Libyan coast.

It is the second humanitarian rescue for the vessel, which took over from the LÉ Niamh at the start of the month as the Irish Defence Forces’ ship in the Mediterranean assisting with the rescue of migrants.

According to the Defence Forces an inflatable craft carrying migrants was spotted about 50km north-west off the coast of Tripoli.

For more The Irish Times reports with links to the LÉ Niamh which had carried out the humanitarian role until the 'Beckett' tookover in the same waters off north Africa. During three months on duty the crew of the 'Niamh' rescued more than 4,200 people.

The LE Niamh completed her deployment when she returned to a hero's welcome in Cork earlier this month.

Published in Navy

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