The Philippine Coast Guard needs 30 more ships

The Philippine Coast Guard needs at least 30 more ships and patrol craft to help secure the country’s maritime boundaries, a PCG official said Saturday.

Rear Adm. Rodolfo Isorena, PCG fleet commander, said the Coast Guard needed additional vessels since its existing 15 ships were not enough to patrol the seas covered by the 54 PCG stations or outposts across the country.

“We really need more ships and patrol craft. That’s our No. 1 priority,” Isonera said in an interview. “Each station should have a ship so that if something happens in its area of jurisdiction, our unit can properly respond.”

Isonera said the Coast Guard actually needed 60 ships but could settle with half that number due to the high cost of acquiring new vessels.

At present, the PCG’s main work horses are the four 56-meter Tenix (San Juan class) search-and-rescue vessels which were acquired in the early 2000′s.

The four are considered  the PCG’s most modern vessels as they are equipped with decompression chambers and  helipads. However, two of these ships are currently under repair.

“If you are a passenger and your ship is about to sail, you’d feel safe seeing that there’s a Coast Guard ship ready to respond,” Isonera said.

New Coast Guard Class For Sweden

The first of a new 90 ft class of five vessels for the Swedish Coast Guard Service was recently delivered to the port of Falkenburg, west Sweden with a further four under construction at Baltic Workboats AS, Estonia . 

The vessels are designed for main duties of maritime surveillance, border including fisheries control, protection of the environment, rescue and civil protection including firefighting, monitoring and diving operations.

The 52 t vessels have an LOA of 90 ft (26.5 m), beam of 20 ft (6.2 m) and draft of 5 ft (1.5 m). Unsual for its size, there is a triple pod propulsion system comprising three Volvo Penta IPS 1050 steerable pod drives with D13-800 diesels each rated at 800 hp at 2,000 rpm (Rating 4 - light commercial application).

Synchronisaton and control of the three engines and drives is carried out by the electronic EVC-E system which is connected to an Integrated Alarm Monitoring and Control System (IAMCS) through a newly developed from a Volvo Penta interface.

In addition to extremely good maneuverability using a joystick command for both speed and docking, a major benefit of IPS is reduced fuel consumption with savings of up to 30 per cent claimed by the manufacturers. The lower fuel consumption over the whole speed range not only produces substantial fuel cost savings but also reduced CO2 and NOx emission. The engines are already meeting the EPA tier 3 emission levels in force 2014.

The vessel has a crew of two and can accommodate up to five crew. There is one bow thruster of approximately 30 hp (22kW). Top speed at full load is 32 kn and the 5,000 liter fuel capacity gives a range exceeding 600 nm.

The engine room showing the three Volvo Penta D13 engines

Turkey rejected joint inspection into downed jet, Syria says

A vessel from Turkish coast guard takes part in a search and rescue operation after the downing of a Turkish plane by Syria. AA photo

Syrian authorities have said they offered to form a joint military commission to investigate the June 22 downing of a Turkish jet but received no response from Turkey, according to daily Hürriyet.

Syria said they made the offer to conduct a joint investigation at the scene where a Turkish jet crashed after being shot down by Syrian air defense forces on June 22. 

Syrian officials also said they delivered the tail section of the plane to Turkey. Officials reportedly said the tail had bullet marks on it.

Damascus has said it shot down the Turkish plane while it was flying in Syrian airspace at an altitude of 100 meters.

Turkey, however, said the plane was shot down 13 nautical miles off the Syrian coast in international airspace.