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Displaying items by tag: Ready Duty Ships RDP

#ReadyDutyShip – Afloat has an update to the Belgium Navy ship which docked in Dublin Port earlier this week having carried out a commemorative service on Monday. This was to mark the 30th anniversary of a UK-Zeebrugge serving ferry that capsized off the Belgium port.

The naval vessel BNS Castor, designated as a Ready Duty Ship (RDS) is one of the most modern of the Belgium Navy is based in Zeebrugge. It was from the country's main naval base that BNS Castor had departed to make an arrival in Dublin Port on Wednesday morning. The sleek 53m long BNS Castor built in 2014 has a maximum speed of 22 knots which is generated from diesel engines.

BNS Castor berthed on the Liffey along Sir John Rogersons Quay where one of the 15 crew members spoke to Afloat to emphasise the visit to Dublin was for an extended shore leave. The length of the crew and recreation leave away from routine North Sea patrols is for four days. Accompanying the naval visitor to the capital's port was L.E. Ciara which had berthed astern.

Among the duties of BNS Castor are search and rescue duties, surveillance of EEZ waters, illegal fishing control and fight against trafficking and pollution.

To assist these tasks, BNS Castor has a pair of RHIB craft, one 9m in length and the other measures 7.5 m. They are positioned towards the stern of the RDS where a cradle docking area has fast release equipped to enable rapid response during deployment missions. The vessel also features a panoramic (360°) bridge and an FN Herstal SeaDeFNder 12.7 mm remotely operated machine gun.

BNS Castor was commissioned by the Belgiam Navy to a French shipyard SOCARENAM for the RDS program for two vessels. BNS Castor was delivered in July 2014 and was followed by sister BNS Pollux in the first half of 2015.

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.