MV Matthew and shipping drugs

Those in control of the ship were not cooperating with Naval instructions to stop, and were turning the ship aggressively making a water based boarding operation highly dangerous/impossible given the sheer size of the ship..

I doubt they'd want to let the public know every intricate detail of what happened and who was involved, not at this stage anyway. All you're ever going to get are snippets.

It was a separate smaller trawler that ran aground wasn't it? As they believe the MV Matthew was out doing loops off the coast while transferring it's 'cargo' to smaller boats (like this trawler), who were actually bringing the stuff ashore.

Yeah that's it the Matthew seems to be a significant mothership,I believe some of the crew were trying to burn bales of cocaine when the lads boarded,the navy fired warning shots across it's now too

Some pics of the lads equipped with night vision goggles and h&K 416A5 rifles

And we are a weak link when it's comes to stopping and deterring the boat,

2- why was it not possible for the guards/customs officers no able to board the ship from a boat

The freeboard is too high.

7- did the Irish services - army rangers, et. al - get a tip off from eg . Interpol and they then just go to the ship and check it out

ARW were called in by Customs/Revenue/Naval service.

The ARW had to become Customs Officers, as Customs Officers are allowed board vessels.

It took an hour to appoint the ARW as Customs Officers.

"The Director General of Revenue and Customs’ Operations said provisions in the Customs Act 2015 were used for the first time to appoint Defence Forces personnel as customs officers to go on board and secure the vessel.

Gerry Harrahill said appointed customs officers can board a vessel at sea but because of the weather conditions and the movements of the ship, customs were not equipped to board.

The ship did not comply and he said it became obvious that force was required.

"Our legislation provided for it," he said, "It was the first time we had to use it."

I'm no expert, but surely a huge ship behaving in that manner only raises suspicion?

It's OK for planes to circle, but not ships. Behaviour like that surely could be picked up by automated monitoring systems? Or with AI they'll stand out in future?

Or perhaps the owners let this one be caught? To get others through?

They fire warning shots usually tracer Rounds first and if they are ignored they fire live rounds across the bow and close to the wheel house, it's mainly used to get the boats to stop or rapidly change course

On that the wb Yates is regularly used for training the ARW and Naval forces for boarding exercises at sea

I believe that would be next course of action

Don't worry, give it time and there will be plenty of people coming up with some edgey take on all of this that will rope in migrants, refugees and the housing crisis.

As somebody else said it would have been impossible to board an uncooperative ship from a RIB or other small vessel.

There'll be a green party rep along to ask if the bullets were biodegradable.

@artanevilla 1 - how many rangers were winched onto the ship and were they all winched from the one helicopter - That would be classified for obvious reasons

Not classified being the AW 139 can carry 8 fully armed troops ,in this case all 8 wouldn't have been dropped as at least one would have provided overwatch with sniper rifle and another door gunner manning the 7.62 FN mag ,

By all accounts this wasn't meticulously planned for months it was a very a rushed job ,I believe one lads was involved may have been wearing trainers at the time ,they deployed rapidly from Waterford, only after a trawler ran a ground very much a short notice operation,

They are recyclable

My point still stands. It would be impossible to board an uncooperative ship from a rib.

Sea was too rough to board it from sea.

couple of shots fired across it bow to let it know they weren’t messing around but still didn’t cooperate and kept goin so only way to bring it under control was board it from the air as quickly as possible before they started throwing stuff overboard.

The lad they bought the trawler off said they were taking straight back to England and they sailed on up the Wexford coast.

Antwerp is, spain next, no patrols there is it?

These drugs are for ireland

why would you bring drugs to Ireland to a rocky outcrop to then have to navigate bringing them to Uk or the mainland

the weakest link is that most cargo is never inspected, theres to much of it and theres always someone who can be paid off

I would presume the international drug barons would consider the Irish coastline, and once in Ireland they can go via NI to GB.

How protected is the Irish coast anyway. The Irish navy does patrol the coast, but so I hear some ships are not active at the moment.

theres no point just presuming though

look at these lads, patrolling? The ships have trackers onboard

you still have to get on a ferry to the UK.

how much was on the trawler? the rest is going elsewhere

6 of our 8 Navy ships are tied up. Customs do have boats but I'm not sure how often they're at sea either - there's one based in Dun Laoghaire, and in years and years of sailing two or three times a week out of there, I've seen it off the dock once or twice.

I would say that our coastline is considered to be largely unprotected, and a piss easy target for landing all sorts.

I sailed to Spain a few years ago, and off the coast of Galicia we were buzzed by a customs plane, and I was assured by the skipper (who had done that trip loads of times) that if there was any query or concern, a boat would arrive along and we'd be boarded (I think he had been once before). There is nothing like that level of surveillance going on here.

A bulk carrier is a totally different design than a car ferry. Have a look at the first 40 seconds of this video, similar ship and weather conditions to yesterday and this is with a co-operating ship...