Portaferry is a small town in County Down, Northern Ireland, at the southern end of the Ards Peninsula, near the Narrows at the entrance to Strangford Lough. It is home to the Exploris aquarium and is well known for the annual Gala Week Float Parade. It hosts its own small Marina, the Portaferry Marina. The Portaferry – Strangford Ferry service operates daily at 30-minute intervals between the villages of Portaferry and Strangford, less than 1500 metres apart, conveying about 500,000 passengers per annum. It had a population of 2,514 people in the 2011 Census. The town is located within the Barony of Ards Upper.
The Naval Service is the maritime component of the Defence Forces of Ireland and is one of the three branches of the Irish Defence Forces. Its base is in Haulbowline, County Cork.
The Minister for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures was the title of Frank Aiken as a member of the Government of Ireland from 8 September 1939 to 18 June 1945 during The Emergency — the state of emergency in operation in Ireland during World War II. The Minister was intended to handle Civil Defence and related measures, allowing the Minister for Defence to concentrate on matters relating to the regular Army. The office was also responsible for handling wartime censorship.
A research vessel is a ship or boat designed, modified, or equipped to carry out research at sea. Research vessels carry out a number of roles. Some of these roles can be combined into a single vessel but others require a dedicated vessel. Due to the demanding nature of the work, research vessels may be constructed around an icebreaker hull, allowing them to operate in polar waters.
The Office of Marine and Aviation Operations (OMAO) is a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which operates a wide variety of specialized ships and aircraft to carry out the environmental and scientific missions of NOAA.
CCGS Hudson was an offshore oceanographic and hydrographic survey vessel operated by the Canadian Coast Guard. The ship entered service in 1963 with the Canadian Oceanographic Service, stationed at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, called CSS Hudson. The ship made several significant scientific voyages, among them the first circumnavigation of the Americas in 1970. The ship was transferred to the Canadian Coast Guard in 1996 and decommissioned in 2022. A replacement is not scheduled for delivery until 2024–2025.
RV Atlantis is a Thomas G. Thompson-class oceanographic research ship, owned by the US Navy and operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution as part of the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) fleet. She is the host vessel of DSV Alvin. She is named for the first research vessel operated by WHOI, the sailboat RV Atlantis, for which the Space ShuttleAtlantis is also named.
The fishing industry in Scotland comprises a significant proportion of the United Kingdom fishing industry. A recent inquiry by the Royal Society of Edinburgh found fishing to be of much greater social, economic and cultural importance to Scotland than it is relative to the rest of the UK. Scotland has just 8.4 per cent of the UK population but lands at its ports over 60 per cent of the total catch in the UK.
The Marine Institute is a state agency in Ireland that provides government, public agencies and the maritime industry with scientific, advisory and economic development services, aiming to inform policy-making, regulation and the sustainable management and growth of the country's marine resources. Founded in 1991 on foot of a 1974 report, the institute undertakes and promotes marine research and development. The agency's staff and operations are governed by a ministerially-appointed board. Based at its headquarters near Galway, it has an office in Dublin and two research vessels.
The SV Mandalay is a three-masted schooner measuring 163.75 ft (49.91 m) pp, with a wrought iron hull. It was built as the private yacht Hussar (IV), and would later become the research vessel Vema, one of the world's most productive oceanographic research vessels. The ship currently sails as the cruising yacht Mandalay in the Caribbean.
The Scottish Government's Marine Directorate is responsible for managing Scotland's seas and freshwater fisheries along with delivery partners NatureScot and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.
CCGS Teleost is a Canadian Coast Guard fisheries research vessel. The ship was originally constructed in Norway in 1988 as a commercial fishing trawler named Atlantic Champion. In 1993, the Canadian government purchased the vessel and after a competition among schoolchildren, the vessel was named Teleost by the winner. The vessel was converted to an offshore fisheries research vessel in 1994–1995 and entered service in 1996 with the Canadian Coast Guard. The ship is currently in active service.
RV Corystes is an ocean-going, research vessel operating around Northern Ireland. She is equipped with specialist fishing gear and acoustic techniques for surveys of fish stocks.
RV Cefas Endeavour is an ocean-going fisheries research vessel based at the port of Lowestoft and owned by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas).
Marine Research Vessel (MRV) Alba-Na-Mara is a small marine and fisheries research vessel, operated by the Marine Scotland directorate of the Scottish Government.
RV David Thompson is a Parks Canada mid-shore scientific research and survey vessel, that entered service in 2016. David Thompson has been used to carry out underwater archaeology work with Parks Canada during the survey of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, the two Franklin Expedition ships lost in Northern Canadian waters. The vessel was formerly a fisheries patrol vessel of the Canadian Coast Guard named CCGS Arrow Post.
RV Corella (LT767) was a fisheries research vessel that was operated by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food - Directorate of Fisheries, now known as the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) between 1967 and 1983.
RV Tom Crean is a multi-purpose research vessel operated by the Marine Institute of Galway, Ireland. It entered service in 2022 for use in fisheries research, oceanographic, hydrographic and geological research as well as deploying and maintaining weather buoys, observational infrastructure and remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs) in the Irish Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). According to its owners it is the "worlds quietest research vessel", being the first vessel to exceed the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) noise standard for fisheries research. Named after Irish Antarctic explorer Tom Crean, the vessel is 52.8 metres long and can accommodate 12 crew members and 14 researchers. It is able to go to sea for at least 21 days at a time, and is designed to operate in harsh sea conditions. The vessel was commissioned to replace the RV Celtic Voyager.
RV Celtic Voyager is a multi-purpose research vessel operated by Qikiqtaaluk Corporation as of 2023. Prior to this, the vessel was operated by the Marine Institute of Galway, Ireland from 1997 to 2022. It was Ireland's first custom-built multi-purpose research vessel, replacing the repurposed fishing trawler RV Lough Beltra. Celtic Voyager was built in the Netherlands in 1997.
Ireland