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Displaying items by tag: Refugee SAR Med mission

#BeckettReturns - LÉ Samuel Becket (P61) has returned to Irish waters having completed her humanitarian role in search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean, writes Jehan Ashmore.

Commodore Hugh Tully, Flag Officer Commanding the Naval Service is to visit the crew of the leadship OPV90 class which arrived in Cork Harbour this morning.

It is understood her last port of call was Malaga, Spain having sailed from duties in the central Mediterranean where she was heavily involved in rescuing refugees from unseaworthy small craft off the coast of Libya. 

LÉ Samuel Beckett is this morning to berth at Haulbowline Naval Base from where she departed on deployment in September. Onboard are a crew of 58 who were joined for the humanitarian mission by two medics from the Army and the Air Corps.

The Naval Service OPV successfully rescued 1,088 people over the course of five operations in co-operation with the Italian Maritime Rescue Co-Ordination Centre.

As previously reported, the Government may deploy another naval vessel  in early 2016 to assist with the ongoing crisis.

 

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