Trinity House, the General Lighthouse Authority (GLA) for England, Wales and Channel Islands, will not award a contract for the replacement of THV Patricia under the current procurement process.

The GLA however intends to commence a new procurement process in due course.

The decision announced last month was made following a procurement process which was conducted in accordance with the Public Contract Regulations 2015. The process resulted in no bids that fully met Trinity House’s requirements, and therefore no award will be made.

Delivery of its statutory obligations to provide aids to navigation for the safety of navigation within its areas of responsibility remains a high priority for Trinity House.

Following the completion of dry-docking the THV Patricia this year, the multil-functional tender has been fully recertified to UK Flag State requirements, and can for the time being continue to operate safely with our experienced crews.

The requirement for Trinity House to replace the multi-function tender THV Patricia (built in 1982) was agreed by the Maritime Minister following the conclusion of a thorough Fleet Review in 2018 that a layered fleet of seven ships provides the most pragmatic solution to meet the three General Lighthouse Authorities’ statutory obligations.

Asides the GLA of Trinity House, the other two GLA's are the Northern Lighthouse Board which is responsible for Scottish and Manx waters while Irish Lights covers the entire island of Ireland.

Sailing was not the only activity that took place in Dublin Bay last Saturday as the Northern Lighthouse Board's (NLB) multi-function tender NLV Pharos was busy at work, writes Jehan Ashmore.

The NLB is the Scottish equivalent of the Commissioners of Irish Lights (CIL) and it is not unusual for such vessels to share work duties beyond their respective jurisdictions. The 84m NLV Pharos is equipped with dynamic positioning and a 30-tonne main crane on her 300m2 aft-deck.

Overall she is similar in appearance to Irish lights ILV Granuaile which is based out of Dun Laoghaire. The Irish Lights tender built in Romania in 2000 tends to operate more often off the west coast during the summer months due to the more favourable weather conditions.

The 1,300 (dwt) deadweight tonnes NLV Pharos yesterday returned to her base in Oban from her Irish duties. The west coast base was established in 1904 and is also homeport to the service's smaller NLV Pole Star which is equipped with an 18-tonne crane on her 90m2 aft deck.

The facility in 2000 underwent a £4.2 million redevelopment to turn a buoy yard into a multi functional support base which is computer-linked to the NLB headquarters in Edinburgh.

In addition Trinity House which maintains the service for England and Wales operate the tenders THV Galtea,THV Patricia and the fast-response craft THV Alert from their base in Harwich.

Trinity House forms the trio of the General Lighthouse Authorities (GLA) alongside NLB and CIL. Each member of the GLA co-operate in the allocation of vessel-tender deployment.

Asides the varied and critical role of the tasks performed by the GLA's tenders, they are also available for charter to third parties. Between them the tenders can conduct buoy and chain work, search and rescue, lighthouse re-fuelling, salvage and recovery, towing, hydrographic applications and ROV work.