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A FISHING BOAT off the coast of Donegal had a close encounter with a submarine last week.
Fisherman Seán Ó Briain has described how his boat came within 200 yards of a submarine off Tory Island.
He told RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta he and others on the boat were setting crab pots 14 miles northwest of Tory Island last Thursday when they saw the submarine coming towards them, and pass just in front of them.
“Last Thursday about 11 am we were setting crab pots when we saw the submarine coming from the northwest. It went round in front of us, about 200 yards away.
We were doing a speed of about seven miles and although the general rule is that when a boat is setting pots or pulling pots other vessels are supposed to give us right of way, but not in this case – we needed to slow down to let the submarine pass.
Yesterday, Britain’s Ministry of Defence admitted that a Royal Navy submarine was responsible for dragging a trawler backwards off the Northern Ireland coast earlier this year.
Ó Briain said that they had spotted a submarine around this time last year as well. On that occasion they also needed to slow down to avoid it.
He said that they were lucky because they had daylight on both occasions and could see the submarine and change course.
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They’re keeping this incident on file, in a filing cabinet.
just knew someone would put this up lol
sinister fringe
Actually smaller vessels usually give way to larger vessels that is the law of the sea. This is not a story worth reporting.
Law of the sea is stand on vessel from starboard side has right of way…just saying Chris
They were engaged in fishing Ross so they would have had right of way irregardless of the direction of approach.
A British military vessel in Irish waters is an illegal move.
The irish Vessel has trumps, no discussion here.
This act could be classed as an act if war….
Biggest shock there was that it was an Irish boat Fishing in Irish waters
Everybody loves their Donegal catch.
Which actually come from Chile, Thailand and the UK. I don’t even think they sell fish caught in Irish seas.
my idea is on file..in a filing cabnet
Is this a violation of Irelands territorial waters?. Should we not have some type of deterrent to monitor and prevent this to protect our seas on those on them. The same way the country needs an air corps capable of intercepting any threats.
Ciara there is a 12 mile territorial zone out from our coast they were outside that.We have a 200mile out area that we can claim economic rights over just incase there is oil or gas. I dont think they should be there either but nothing we can do.
Is this a violation of Ireland’s territorial waters? No is the short answer. As pointed out by Sean they extend for 12 miles.
Well I’d rather a British sub keeping an eye on waters than a Russian one. Something tells me our own sub marine fleet can’t cope with under water patrols!!!!
We should arm our trawlers with undersea speakers blaring out The Wolfe Tones to jam up their sonar.
It would be very cruel to inflict that on anyone Meehawwl.
The sub could fight back with ‘Fisherman’s Blues’ by the Waterboys.
Have we got any sub’s?
Thanks for the answers sean and reg. the territorial versus economic zones info muddied the waters a little for me.
By the by, in addition to endangering ships and crews carrying out their legitimate businesses of fishing and carrying cargo, these bas**rd submarines, seriously endanger marine mammals of various types. Down with them.
Down with them? I have a sinking feeling thats kind of the point of them.
200 yards from a fishing boat is hardly a close encounter…. boat is almost stoonaty and a submarine on top of the water is about 8 knots. bit of a non story.
A mile is too close when you’re on a ship.
On a serious note, this fishing trawler and crew were lucky this incident happened during daylight……I remember some years back a trawler was pulled under by a submarine, the nets from the trawler were wrapped around the propeller of the submarine…..I can’t say for certain if there was fatalities on that occasion.
When subs from the UK are in our coastal waters, why don’t they surface and give way to the trawler as the Skipper said…..They are supposed to be our neighbours.!!!!
probably because if they did they would be obvious to the Russians also running up and down the irish sea.
Shirley the title of this should be “fishermen see submarine in the distance and nothing happens”, shirley?
And it should say that the incident nearly happened 14 miles off Tory island
Orla Ryan wrote the article not Shirley.
Her nickname is Shirley, shirley?
Take your nuclear subs out of our water, please and thanks
They are international waters 14 miles out though
When will they admit to all the submarines off the south east coast? how many countless deaths could have been avoided if the English stuck to their own waters.
“countless deaths” yeah if you class zero as countless?
What of all ,the subs that are sighted off the coast and all the trawlers that have ‘unexplainably’ gone down? They are definitely not irish subs and in the past 20 or so years many boats have gone down. This is known about in the fishing community but not many talk about it, in fact some are officially silenced about it.
Damn tories.
Getting to like the tories, tax cuts, sorting of the benefit system and not being treated as mugs/soft touches in the whole migrant crisis, taking refugees directly from camps in the middle east.
Not our territorial waters.
The Spanish fishing boats are more of a threat than a British sub
Long time no sea
I’m sorry …. ‘fishing boat had to slow down so submarine could pass’ ? Is this what we are calling newsworthy at The Journal nowadays?
Passing 200 yards forward of a craft travelling at “seven miles” is not a near miss. The sub in the picture is not nuclear. The Russians, Americans, French, Chinese, Dutch regularly navigate international waters around Ireland, it’s not just the nasty Brits. Fishing boats are notorious for being badly maintained, ill equipped and not very well handled. The take little notice of collision regulations, often showing misleading lights and shapes. Here’s a quick Wiki on them
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Regulations_for_Preventing_Collisions_at_Sea
The only surprise is that there aren’t more losses from the fishing fleet.
14 miles out is not international waters
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