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Displaying items by tag: Triparite class minehunter

Two vessels from the French Navy based in the Breton naval port of Brest, are to make a four-day visit to Dublin Port during the course of St. Patrick's Day festivities. The minehunter CMT Cassiopée (M642) and mine-route survey craft Altaïr (M771) are to arrive tomorrow morning, writes Jehan Ashmore.
The French vessels are to moor alongside Sir John Rogersons Quay, noting they will not be open to the public. Despite that, the naval ships will be accessible to view at close quarters along the city-centre quayside and the addition of easy road access from the north quays using the nearby Samuel Beckett swing-bridge.

CMT Cassiopée is a 'Tripartite' class minehunter built for the navies of France, Belgium and The Netherlands. The class were conceived in the 1970's and built during the following decade. The French built the mine-hunting equipment, the Belgians provided the electronics and the Dutch constructed the propulsion unit.

Displacing 615 tonnes, Cassiopée (see photo) was built by the Direction des Constructions Navales (DCN) shipyard in Lorient and entered service in 1984. The 51.5m minehunter has a crew of 49. Over the years several of the Tripartite class were sold to the navies of Bulgaria, Indonesia, Latvia and Pakistan.

In January 2009 the Cassiopée was joined by the L.E. Emer (P21) in Bantry Bay to commemmorate the 30th anniversary of the Whiddy Island Oil Refinery disaster and the sinking of the French supertanker the Bételgeuse.

Like the Cassiopée the minehunter BRS Altaïr (M771) was also built in 1984 but at the Chantier (Socarenam) shipyard at Boulogne-sur-Mer. At 28m long the craft (photo) is one of the three Antar class which has a 250 tonnes displacement and a crew of 23.

The French Naval call to the capital was to coincide with a visiting task force group from the German Navy. The task force of two frigates and a support ship were due to visit at the weekend but this was cancelled due to humanitarian relief operations off Libya. To read more about this and the task force vessels click here.

Published in Ports & Shipping

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.