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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

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.