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Displaying items by tag: Leopard class

#NavalVisits - A trio of French Navy trainee ships docked in Dublin Port for a crew rest and recreation visit to the capital this weekend, writes Jehan Ashmore.

The Léopard class school-training vessels each with 18 students, had arrived yesterday and berthed along Sir John Rogersons Quay.

Each of the small ships measure 43m in length and have a beam of 8.30m. The trio are the Lynx, Panthère and Tigre.

Displacing 335 tonnes, the sisters are part of an eight-strong class that were commissioned in the early 1980's. Among them Jaguar which along with Tigre called to Dun Laoghaire Harbour just over a year ago.  

Arnament comprises of pair of 12.7mm guns. 

The range of the Léopard class is 5,000 nautical based on a speed of 12 knots.

Published in Naval Visits

#Flotilla – A French Navy flotilla all consisting of training vessels are visiting Dublin where also in port is the Finnish Navy’s flagship, writes Jehan Ashmore.

The small training ships that arrived yesterday belong to the Léopard class which were commissioned into service from 1982 and the following year. In fact almost all the class are in the capital given that five of the eight training ships are making the four-day call. 

Leadship and class namesake, Léopard is visiting along with Chacal, Guépard, Tigre and Panthère. Each vessel is just 335 displacement tonnes and have a length of 43.0m on a beam of 8.30m. In addition to the training cadets, the class are used to carry out anti-pollution duties.

As for the Finnish Navy’s flagship, FNS Hämeenmaa, this is the first caller to the capital undertaken by the Nordic nation. The minelayer of 1,300 displacement tonnes had arrived on Wednesday direct from Funchal, Madeira.

Published in Naval Visits

#NAVAL VISITS - The first foreign naval visitors to Dublin Port in 2012 will be the French Navy, as five of an eight-strong class of school-training ships from Brest are due to dock on Friday, writes Jehan Ashmore.

The octet  belong to the Léopard class though the namesake leadship, Léopard (A 748) and Jaguar (A 750) will not be forming as part of the visiting flotilla.

Those that will be making the weekend port of call, berthing at Sir John Rogersons Quay will be Panthère (A 749) and Lynx (A 751) both commissioned in 1982 and the remaining quartet Guépard (A 752); Chacal (A 753); Tigre (A 754) and Lion (A 755) which entered service the following year. For a photo of the latter vessel and one of her sisters the Chacal click HERE.

Each of the 44 tonnes vessel's measure 17.5m long and have a beam of  6.40m and drawing a draft of 2.40m. To read more on the class characteristics click HERE.

The class follow in the wake of the last French Naval vessel to enter Dublin Bay, PSP Cormoran (P677). The OPV provided guard-ship duties when accompanying the Solitaire du Figaro race fleet during the stopover to Dun Laoghaire Harbour last August, as previously reported on Afloat.ie

Published in Navy

Galway Port & Harbour

Galway Bay is a large bay on the west coast of Ireland, between County Galway in the province of Connacht to the north and the Burren in County Clare in the province of Munster to the south. Galway city and port is located on the northeast side of the bay. The bay is about 50 kilometres (31 miles) long and from 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) to 30 kilometres (19 miles) in breadth.

The Aran Islands are to the west across the entrance and there are numerous small islands within the bay.

Galway Port FAQs

Galway was founded in the 13th century by the de Burgo family, and became an important seaport with sailing ships bearing wine imports and exports of fish, hides and wool.

Not as old as previously thought. Galway bay was once a series of lagoons, known as Loch Lurgan, plied by people in log canoes. Ancient tree stumps exposed by storms in 2010 have been dated back about 7,500 years.

It is about 660,000 tonnes as it is a tidal port.

Capt Brian Sheridan, who succeeded his late father, Capt Frank Sheridan

The dock gates open approximately two hours before high water and close at high water subject to ship movements on each tide.

The typical ship sizes are in the region of 4,000 to 6,000 tonnes

Turbines for about 14 wind projects have been imported in recent years, but the tonnage of these cargoes is light. A European industry report calculates that each turbine generates €10 million in locally generated revenue during construction and logistics/transport.

Yes, Iceland has selected Galway as European landing location for international telecommunications cables. Farice, a company wholly owned by the Icelandic Government, currently owns and operates two submarine cables linking Iceland to Northern Europe.

It is "very much a live project", Harbourmaster Capt Sheridan says, and the Port of Galway board is "awaiting the outcome of a Bord Pleanála determination", he says.

90% of the scrap steel is exported to Spain with the balance being shipped to Portugal. Since the pandemic, scrap steel is shipped to the Liverpool where it is either transhipped to larger ships bound for China.

It might look like silage, but in fact, its bales domestic and municipal waste, exported to Denmark where the waste is incinerated, and the heat is used in district heating of homes and schools. It is called RDF or Refuse Derived Fuel and has been exported out of Galway since 2013.

The new ferry is arriving at Galway Bay onboard the cargo ship SVENJA. The vessel is currently on passage to Belem, Brazil before making her way across the Atlantic to Galway.

Two Volvo round world races have selected Galway for the prestigious yacht race route. Some 10,000 people welcomed the boats in during its first stopover in 2009, when a festival was marked by stunning weather. It was also selected for the race finish in 2012. The Volvo has changed its name and is now known as the "Ocean Race". Capt Sheridan says that once port expansion and the re-urbanisation of the docklands is complete, the port will welcome the "ocean race, Clipper race, Tall Ships race, Small Ships Regatta and maybe the America's Cup right into the city centre...".

The pandemic was the reason why Seafest did not go ahead in Cork in 2020. Galway will welcome Seafest back after it calls to Waterford and Limerick, thus having been to all the Port cities.

© Afloat 2020