Second-hand yachts can’t guard the Channel against people-smugglers
sir – Lieutenant Commander David Wright (Letters, December 27) has a very good idea in suggesting the Ministry of Defence buy half a dozen second-hand motor yachts to patrol the Channel to prevent peoplesmugglers from using the sea route from France.
But, if the experience with HMS Wakeful is anything to go by, it would soon suffer from “mission creep”. Wakeful was a Swedish tug bought as a tender to submarines operating from the Clyde. It did not help that all its documentation was in Swedish. It acted as part of the Fishery Protection Squadron for some years, but in the final analysis it cost a fortune and was replaced by a purpose-built ship, HMS Sentinel.
With civilian yachts, the very adequate marine engines would need to be ruggedised. The boats’ sides would need to be reinforced, as well as the foredeck, to support the armament. The internals would need to be ripped out to provide messdecks. New communications and navigation equipment would need to be fitted. The paperwork would need to be navalised. Space prevents further expansion, but you get my drift. Commander Bill Nimmo-scott
Pewsey, Wiltshire
sir – Reports indicate that just short of 2,000 migrants have endangered their lives by crossing the Channel in small overloaded boats in 2019. In 2018, the recorded number of 562 migrants made the same crossing.
Time and again we are told that the best way of frustrating the criminal gangs who endanger the lives of migrants, including women and children, is to deploy more patrol boats, backed up with more warships, more helicopters, more drones and an increase in the number of foot patrols.
All of these search platforms have a part to play, but is there the danger of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut?
The one search vehicle that has been overlooked is the simple spotter-plane flown by a pilot, with an observer armed with a radio and digital camera. These patrols would be flown on both sides of the Channel to deter migrants still in France and to detect those who had already set sail. At a relatively low speed, a search of the French coast, together with its isolated beaches, between Dunkirk and Boulogne would take 30 minutes. Squadron Leader James A Cowan Durham
sir – A force of second-hand patrol boats sounds too much like common sense for government implementation. However, it does raise the question of how Britain is going to safeguard her fishing waters after Brexit.
No one would want the return of the Cod Wars of the Seventies, but some EU fishermen will doubtless challenge the new limits. This presents a training opportunity for the Royal Navy, using vessels already in service backed up by an air warning system, allowing valuable lessons in co-operation between the two services. David Taylor
Lymington, Hampshire