Displaying items by tag: Rescue Refugees

11th February 2016

NATO to Send Ships to Aegean Sea Over Migrant Crisis

#NATOrefugees- NATO military vessels writes The Irish Times, are to be deployed to the Aegean Sea to help Turkey and Greece crackdown on criminal networks smuggling migrants and refugees into Europe, allied defence ministers said on Thursday.

The move, discussed by North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ministers for the first time at a meeting in Brussels, is aimed at helping the continent tackle its worst migration crisis since the second World War, with more than a million asylum seekers arriving last year.

Although the plan is still to be detailed by NATO generals, member states are likely to use ships to work with Turkish and Greek coast guards and the European Union border agency Frontex.

Afloat adds the Irish Naval Service (a non-NATO member) last month had plans in place to deploy another patrol ship, LÉ Roisin (P51) to the Mediterranean Sea. This would be in the event that the next government decides to renew last year’s humanitarian mission to the region.

Also last year, the Defence Budget for 2016 was announced and the White Paper on Defence policy was published, to read more click here.

Published in News Update

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Esailing & Virtual Sailing information

The concept of e-sailing, or virtual sailing, is based on a computer game sailing challenge that has been around for more than a decade.

The research and development of software over this time means its popularity has taken off to the extent that it has now become a part of the sailing seascape and now allows people to take an 'active part' in some of the most famous regattas across the world such as the Vendée Globe, Route du Rhum, Sydney Hobart, Volvo Ocean Race, America’s Cup and some Olympic venues too, all from the comfort of their armchair.

The most popular model is the 'eSailing World Championship'. It is an annual esports competition, first held in 2018 and officially recognised by World Sailing, the sports governing body.

The eSailing World Championship is a yearly competition for virtual sailors competing on the Virtual Regatta Inshore game.

The contract to run the event was given to a private company, Virtual Regatta that had amassed tens of thousands of sailors playing offshore sailing routing game following major offshore races in real-time.

In April 2020, the company says on its website that it has 35,000 active players and 500,000 regattas sailed.

Virtual Regatta started in 2010 as a small team of passionate designers, engineers, and entrepreneurs gathered around the idea that virtual sailing sports games can mix with real races and real skippers.