LÉ ''Samuel Beckett'' (P61) is a (OPV) of the

Irish Naval Service The Naval Service ( ga, An tSeirbhís Chabhlaigh) 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. Though preceded by earlier mar ...

. The ship was launched in November 2013 and commissioned in May 2014. She is named after Irish playwright and author

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and tragicomic expe ...

. Like other OPVs in the Irish Naval Service, the ship's primary mission is

fisheries protection {{Unreferenced, date=March 2008 Maritime patrol is the task of monitoring areas of water. Generally conducted by military and law enforcement agencies, maritime patrol is usually aimed at identifying human activities. Maritime patrol refers to ac ...

search and rescue Search and rescue (SAR) is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger. The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, typically determined by the type of terrain the search ...

, and maritime protection operations, including vessel boardings.

Development

Design

In October 2010, the Irish Naval Service ordered a number of new offshore patrol vessels from

Babcock Marine Babcock International Group plc is a British aerospace, defence and nuclear engineering services company based in London, England. It specialises in managing complex assets and infrastructure. Although the company has civil contracts, its main b ...

, a UK-based shipbuilder operating out of Appledore, North Devon. The first two vessels were named ''Samuel Beckett'' and respectively, and planned to replace (decommissioned September 2013; sold October 2013) and (decommissioned January 2015; commissioned in the

Maritime Squadron of the Armed Forces of Malta The Maritime Squadron of the Armed Forces of Malta ( mt, Skwadra Marittima tal-Forzi Armati ta' Malta) is the naval component of the Maltese military. The Maritime Squadron has responsibility for the security of Maltese territorial waters, ma ...

June 2015). Like the ''Róisín''-class OPV, ''Samuel Beckett'' was designed by

Vard Marine Fincantieri S.p.A. () is an Italian shipbuilding company based in Trieste, Italy. Already the largest shipbuilder in Europe, after the acquisition of Vard in 2013, Fincantieri group doubled in size to become the fourth largest in the world (2 ...

to a VARD 7 series design. Although similar to the ''Róisín''-class OPV, ''Samuel Beckett'' is over longer, intended to increase its capabilities in the rough waters of the North Atlantic. The ship is designed to carry a crew of 44 and have space for up to 10 trainees. Additionally, ''Samuel Beckett'' is designed to carry remotely operated submersibles and a decompression chamber for divers. The expanded deck area would allow the ship to deploy unmanned surveillance planes.

Construction and naming

Although the ship was built using modern modular construction techniques, the keel was deemed to have been "laid down" during a keel-laying ceremony held at the Appledore Shipbuilding Yard on 19 May 2012 after the first two major components were connected together. In July 2013, while still under construction, the name of the vessel, ''Samuel Beckett'' was announced by the Minister for Defence

Alan Shatter Alan Joseph Shatter (born 14 February 1951) is an Irish lawyer, author and former Fine Gael politician who served as Minister for Justice and Equality and Minister for Defence from 2011 to 2014. He was a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin Sou ...

Dáil Éireann Dáil Éireann ( , ; ) is the lower house, and principal chamber, of the Oireachtas (Irish legislature), which also includes the President of Ireland and Seanad Éireann (the upper house).Article 15.1.2º of the Constitution of Ireland read ...

Propulsion

The ship is powered by a pair of 16-cylinder W16V26F Wärtsilä diesel motors driving twin shafts that can propel the vessel to a top speed of . The ship is also equipped with dynamic positioning systems and a power take-in (PTI) drive, to enable fuel savings as the main engines can be shut down and switched to alternative power sources such as stored battery power or a smaller more economical engine.

Operational history

The ship was completed and floated out of the shipyard in November 2013, delivered in April 2014 and commissioned for service in May 2014. The vessel was "twinned" with Cork city in a ceremony held on 7 June 2014. In late 2015 ''Samuel Beckett'' was deployed to the Mediterranean as part of Ireland's contribution to the humanitarian response to the European migrant crisis. During the ship's cruise, more than 1,000 migrants were rescued. In one event, 111 people were rescued in a United Nations operation off the coast of Libya. The vessel was redeployed to the area in 2016, and on 17 November 2016 rescued 50 migrants who were on a rubber boat 25 Nautical Miles North-west of

Tripoli Tripoli or Tripolis may refer to: Cities and other geographic units Greece *Tripoli, Greece, the capital of Arcadia, Greece *Tripolis (region of Arcadia), a district in ancient Arcadia, Greece * Tripolis (Larisaia), an ancient Greek city in t ...

. This brought the number of migrants rescued by the ''Samuel Beckett'' to 2310. In March 2020 the Naval Service provided the vessel to the HSE as a testing centre to be docked at Sir John Rogerson's Quay as part of Irish response to the coronavirus pandemic.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Samuel Beckett (P61) 2013 ships Ships built in Devon Samuel Beckett-class offshore patrol vessels Naval ships of the Republic of Ireland