French Navy’s Swiss Army knife
THE French Navy’s patrol, assistance and supply vessel, D’Entrecasteaux, visited the country last week
The 65 metre ship, manned by 23 naval personnel, is called the “Swiss Army Knife of the French Navy”.
The ship is designed to perform sovereignty, law enforcement and logistics missions such as policing illegal fishing, traffics, mining, assisting distressed ships, search, rescue and contributing to the logistics of overseas collectivities.
One of its main tasks is maritime law enforcement, particularly in the domain of commercial fishing and against illegal immigration, drug trafficking and piracy.
D’Entrecasteaux commanding officer, Lieutenant Louis Ballu said their main mission was to know the area they patrolled and to help in addressing specific challenges that other Pacific Island countries faced.
“We have the capabilities of carrying supplies of more than 300 tonnes such as water, gas and conduct disembarking operations on shore with our amphibious craft especially during disasters,” Lt. Ballu said.
“We have anti-pollution equipment that we use to protect the environment and we also have towing capabilities that we can use to tow ships that have engine problems or are adrift.
“We have maritime surveillance and retention rooms that we can use for civilians that carry-out illegal fishing or drug smuggling activities in the Pacific waters.”
The D’ Entrecasteaux was in Fiji for four days and on its sixth port visit. Lt Louis Ballu said they assisted Fiji through monitoring its exclusive economic zones (EEZ) and shared their reports with relevant authorities, particularly when dealing with illegal fishing ship movements on Fiji’s waters. “It is important for us to understand what is happening on Pacific waters especially on the different EEZ, which is why we often do our port visit to Fiji and other Pacific Island nations,” he said. “This is a recent ship with more than 280 days out of home port a year and it gained experience specifically on environment protection of the South West Pacific. “The ship’s surveillance capability was put to the test in 2017, the year of her acceptance in the French Navy.” The ship was in Fiji for four days and its next stop is Vanuatu and Noumea in New Caledonia.