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23rd October 2016

More Than 700 Migrants Rescued by LÉ Samuel Beckett off Libya

Migrants rescued from the barge by LE Samuel Beckett northeast of the Libyan capital

#MigrantsRescued - A total 772 migrants were rescued by LÉ Samuel Beckett from a large wooden barge during a “complex search and rescue operation” off the coast of Tripoli, Libya.

The operation writes The Irish Times was carried out on Friday following a call for assistance from the Italian Maritime Rescue Co-Ordination Centre.

The Irish Naval Service vessel located and rescued the migrants from the barge about 36 nautical miles (67km) northeast of the Libyan capital.

Afloat adds that it is a month ago since the OPV90 leadship departed Cork Harbour on the deployment to provide humanitarian duties.

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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