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Displaying items by tag: Irish navy newbuilds

11th July 2013

Novel Nobel Names for Naval Service Newbuilds

#NavalNewNames – According to The Irish Times, the Government has decided to name the two new OPV patrol vessels after Nobel prize-winning Irish writers. The move is a departure from the policy of naming vessels after female mythical figures.

The newbuilds are to be named L.E. Samuel Beckett and L.E. James Joyce, the first of the pair is due for delivery in early 2014 and the second in 2015 respectively.

As previously reported on Afloat.ie, the keel-laying ceremony of the first of two PV90 OPV's took place more than a year ago at Babcock Marine's shipyard in north Devon. They are an enhanced version of the 'Roisin' (PV80) class and are to be 10m longer.

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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