Hellenic Coast Guard News

VIKING Norsafe Life-saving Equipment HELLAS has secured orders from Greece’s Ministry of Shipping & Island Policy to deliver 31 patrol boats and three high-speed boats to the Hellenic Coast Guard. The orders, covered in three separate contracts with the VIKING Life-saving Equipment subsidiary, are part of an EU-backed Hellenic Coast Guard procurement program which was initiated four years ago.Two of the contracts cover 31 boats based on VIKING Norsafe’s proven Munin S1200 hull form, with the design adapted to meet client requirements.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch on Thursday called for a "credible" probe into a migrant shipwreck off Greece in June in which hundreds died, saying that contrasting accounts by the Greek coastguard and survivors "were extremely concerning".The overcrowded fishing trawler said to be carrying between 400-750 people from Pakistan, Syria and Egypt sank in international waters off Greece on its way to Italy from Libya. Some 104 men survived and authorities recovered only…

Two cargo vessels collided off the Greek island of Chios near the Turkish cost on Friday, authorities said, adding that there were no injuriesThe Singapore-flagged cargo vessel Potentia with 19 crew members and the Vanuatu-flagged ship Ant with 13 crew collided in the eastern Aegean Sea nine miles north of Chios."There are no injuries, there is no risk of pollution", a coast guard official told Reuters on condition of anonymity, adding that the ships were not loaded with cargo.It was not immediately clear what had caused the collision, the official added.

The Swedish-built Combat Boat 90 (CB 90) has established itself with military forces around the world as both a warrior and a workhorse. The 52-foot boats first entered service in 1991 as troop carriers with the Swedish Marines, which is still procuring them. There are more than 250 operating worldwide today.These rugged boats are optimized for high-speed / shallow-draft operations in and around Sweden’s many coastal islands, but they have also proven to be ideal for a variety of other applications and operating environments.The CB 90 is 52 feet long, with a draft of just 2 feet 7 inches.

VIKING Life-Saving Equipment has delivered the first vessel in a series of three new ambulance boats for the Hellenic Coastguard.For many years, the Coastguard and the Hellenic National Center for Emergency Care (EKAB) have worked together to support patient transfer requirements from the Greek islands to larger hospitals. Today, a call for transport services is almost a daily occurrence.The new closed-cabin boat will be station in Naxos as the first in a series of special craft equipped with medical equipment.

VIKING Life-Saving Equipment reports it has won a tender to supply the Hellenic Army Special Forces with its Munin S1200 daughter craft, continuing a series of agreements that support patrol, defense and search and rescue capability of Hellenic seaborne forcesDesigned to operate for extended periods of time away from land or its mother ship, the 12m length by 3.5m deep-V hull boat will support Special Forces in tactical maneuvers, patrol and search and rescue operations. The Munin…

VIKING Life-Saving Equipment has been declared the winning bidder in a tender covering three offshore high-speed ambulance boats that will support emergency services in the Aegean Sea.The international tender was concluded after a cooperation between the Hellenic Coast Guard and the Greek Emergency Response Organization (E.K.A.B), in an initiative supported and financed by the European Union under the INTERREG V-A Cooperation Program 2014-2020.All three ambulance boats are scheduled for delivery during the summer of 2020…

Elbit Systems Ltd. won a contract from Cantiere Navale Vittoria SpA to supply combat suites and perform systems integration for three new patrol vessels of the Hellenic Coast Guard (HCG). The systems to be supplied and integrated include Electro-Optic payloads, Radars, Navigation Systems, Warship Automatic Identification System (W-AIS) as well as Remote Control Weapon Stations (RCWS) with full integration into a Command and Control software. The combat suit is designed to support future “plug and play” integration of aerial and surface unmanned systems that will enable expansion of the operational envelop of the patrol vessels far beyond line of sight.

Norsafe announced it has recently secured an order from Papastratos Tobacco Company S.A., an affiliate of Philip Morris International in Greece, for the construction of five high speed patrol boats, which will be donated to the Hellenic Coast Guard.The donation of the boats is part of the international project PMI Impact, created by Philip Morris International, whose aim is to support public and private bodies in the fight against smuggling and related crimes.The five units will be manufactured in Greece and are expected to join the Hellenic Coast Guard fleet at the end of 2018.

A new lifeboat has been donated to the Hellenic Rescue Team (HRT) by fellow International Maritime Rescue Federation (IMRF) members the Norwegian Society for Sea Rescue (RS), and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. ‘Norway II’ is the second lifeboat to be donated to HRT and follows ‘Norway I’ that has operated since September last year in the Aegean Sea around Kos. In her speech on Lesvos, the ‘godmother’ of the boat, Mrs. Marit Nybakk, Vice President of the Parliament…

A new lifeboat station has been opened on the Greek island of Chios – with the cooperation of International Maritime Rescue Federation (IMRF) members – to help support the rescue of migrants in the Aegean. The Lifeboat station was made possible through a partnership between Koninklijke Nederlandse Redding Maatschappij (KNRM), the maritime search and rescue service from the Netherlands, and the Hellenic Rescue Team (HRT), and with the support of the Maria Tsakos Foundation along with community leaders and local volunteers. At an event to celebrate the opening of the centre – which was completed in only three months – two lifeboat vessels donated by the KNRM, Athena and Arina to be deployed on the surrounding waters, were also christened.

The International Maritime Rescue Federation (IMRF) is to strengthen the capacity and effectiveness of the Hellenic Rescue Team (HRT), an IMRF member organization which is constantly rescuing migrants in the Aegean Sea. The IMRF will do this with the support of European maritime search and rescue (SAR) organizations who are also IMRF members. Following a temporary drop in the number of people trying to reach the Greek islands by sea in November, figures from the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) are showing an increase again.

The 2008 IMO Award for Exceptional Bravery at Sea has been presented to a Brazilian seafarer who saved fellow crew members from a dangerous fire on a ship. Mr. Rodolpho Fonseca da Silva Rigueira, of the drill ship Noble Roger Eason, nominated by the Government of Brazil, for his decisive, selfless action to rescue six fellow crew members from a catastrophic fire which burst out on it. The fire originated from an explosion, causing imminent risk to the lives of crew members in the vicinity of the explosion; yet, instead of evacuating the area, he repeatedly faced the fire and very high temperatures to save his colleagues, at severe risk to his own life. Mr. Rigueira was presented with the award by IMO Secretary-General Mr. Efthimios E.

The fourth "Parallel Event" to celebrate World Maritime Day formally and officially outside of the International Maritime Organization's London base was held in Greece on 19 and 20 September, hosted by the Government of the Hellenic Republic. On 19 September, Athens was the location for a seminar and panel discussion on the theme of IMO: 60 years in the service of shipping, in which leading figures from the maritime community took the opportunity to outline, from their perspective, their views on the past, present and future of IMO and the shipping industry. On 20 September, the International Memorial to the Wife of the Seafarer was unveiled in the town of Galaxidi, by the Secretary-General of IMO, Mr. Efthimios E.

Lockheed Martin will provide an extension to the Greek National Vessel Traffic Management Information System (VTMIS) under a $1 million sub-contract from the Hellenic Telecommunications & Electronics industry, INTRACOM. The extension will support the country’s port security infrastructure for the 2004 Olympic Games. The Games are expected to bring 16,000 athletes and more than four million spectators to Greece. Numerous spectators are expected to move daily through the ferry ports of Rafina and Lavrio, located on the east coast of the Greek peninsula, which will be equipped with new regional Vessel Traffic Services (VTS) monitoring centers. Lockheed Martin will provide two radar systems to help monitor the waterway during the Olympic Games.

The election of Efthimios Mitropoulos of Greece to the post of Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organization was confirmed on November 27 to appoint Mitropoulos. He will take up office on the retirement of the incumbent, William O'Neil of Canada, at the end of this year. In a wide-ranging acceptance speech to the Assembly, Mr Mitropoulos spoke of the challenges that lie ahead for the Organization. Mitropoulos emphasized the need for change within IMO, referring to the "winds of change" blowing through the maritime world and through the Organization itself, and pledged himself to understanding and interpreting the message borne by those winds.

Captain Zenon Sdougos, a long-serving and highly esteemed contributor to the work of the International Maritime Organization, has died at his home in London. He was 89. Captain Sdougos began his long maritime career as a deck officer in the Greek merchant navy, before joining the Hellenic Coast Guard, where he achieved the rank of Captain. In 1961, he joined the IMO Secretariat to work in the Maritime Safety Division. In 1976 he retired from IMO, having risen to the post of Director of the division. He then began a new career, as an advisor to the Union of Greek Shipowners, in which capacity he continued to make an outstanding contribution to the work of the Organization.

Efthimios Mitropoulos, secretary-general of the International Maritime Organization, recently became the first holder of a new award for significant contribution to the ferry industry, the Interferry Person of Distinction. Interferry named Mitropoulos for his "global leadership in highlighting the importance of passenger ship safety". Mitropoulous joined the IMO Secretariat in 1979 and was appointed to the top post in 2004. The presentation was made by Interferry CEO Len Roueche at IMO headquarters in London on July 31. Mitropoulos was cited as a driving force in the joint IMO/Interferry initiative to improve domestic ferry safety in developing nations.