3 New Navy Vessels for Irish Naval Service

Anybody checked them out on vesselfinder or similar?

Just south of Fastnet in the last hour.

Think they were FFBNW a remote weapon station forward so it shouldn't be too hard to fit, though first we would have to pick a new 20/30mm system...

Slightly off-topic - this Dutch ship was in Cork last week. DroneHawk (of drone video fame) captured this interesting manoeuvre:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrAds8fGzvY

Arrived into Cobh on a lovely sunny afternoon. There was a nice crowd of people watching all along the waterfront in Cobh, and you could see people at the park in Haulbowline. It's good to see that people are interested.

Same in Crosshaven, at the entrance to the harbour.

There is also the issue of accessability. Her stairways are built to Naval standard. I.e they are glorified ladders, with a watertight lid to bang your head off if you rush it. The only way to make it safe for access on all decks is cut large holes on the side, and connect it to a stairs/lift. Then you can only do that where tide is not an issue. Thats before you get a single visitor aboard, let alone exhibit.

Exers who served aboard wil hate it, as it's not the authentic experience. Thats a large chunk of your potential visitors. Who else, in 20 years time will be interested in seeing Irelands last home build patrol vessel, with a helipad that was rarely used and eventually decommissioned. I often wonder how much equipment was removed from HMS Belfast to make her so accessible. And Belfast is in the middle of the tourist centre, opposite the Tower of London, and 2 and a half times the size of P31.

I see where you're coming from, especially since an OPV like Éithne isn't as "sexy" as a battleship, aircraft carrier, or even a cruiser or destroyer, especially since she has no battle honours, etc.. On her own, she's not going to be a major attraction, but that would be the case in Dublin as well.

I do believe that, as a centerpiece of a larger maritime exhibition, having her as a museum ship can work out, and between the city docks, the old shipyard in Rushbrooke, the harbor forts around Crosshaven and Cobh, Spike Island and of course Haulbowline Island itself, Cork has the maritime history to warrant such a large-scale museum. Éithne was the last ship to be built at Rushbrooke and Haulbowline was her home for all of her life. The bigger question here is whether the council and whoever is petitioning for this have enough foresight to think in such broad terms, or whether they've already been consumed by that virulent wave of toxic individualism that is choking out every other worthwhile project in Cork.

Most museum ships have that issue. Good luck getting around the likes of HMS Belfast, HMS Caroline, HMS Cavalier or the majority of museum ships in the US if you're dependent on a wheelchair. I've had some interesting experiences on Belfast and USS Intrepid myself, and I was a whole lot younger back then.

I actually believe her flight deck and hangar would be an advantage in this manner, as a wide bridge connected to there, with ramps or elevators on the dockside would already make her more accessible than a vast number of other museum ships. I agree with you that seeing Ireland's last home-built ship on its own will not be a pull, well except for naval geeks like me, but if you read my reply to Manic Moran, in an ideal scenario she wouldn't be on her own.

I'll be honest, I'm not optimistic myself. Corkonians never seem to miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. But eventually, they'll have to get something right, even by pure chance, a broken clock and all that jazz. hey, one can dream, right?

I found Belfast a much harder climb on my most recent visit. I'm a lot less nimble these days.

I don't really have an issue of cutting open access to a ship that's not that iconic and likely to be scrapped otherwise.

Tank museum at Bovington makes good use of cutaways.

If you put a common sense sign like that up here at the moment you would be done for Discrimination

Does the dry dock in Rushbrooke get much use? Would permanently keeping Éithne there as a museum be an option or creating a new space for her? Let her see out her days where it all began and should make maintaining her easier. It is just across the road from a train station which makes it reasonably accessible and I'd say it would do a great trade with school tours at the very least.

Okay, thanks. Another dock could be dug-out alongside, obviously that would be costly but maybe keeping her there would offset some of the cost of maintaining her (which was previously identified here as a reason why a museum ship won't work) and extend her life as a museum, justifying the cost the conversion costs.

I think Camden would make more sense, it fits a lot better thematically given Camden's focus on the defences of Cork harbour. I haven't made it to Spike Island but from what I've read, the focus there is more on the prison experience, given how short the "fort" period on Spike Island lasted. In addition, there's a pier at Camden that could be modified to take Éithne, provided the water is deep enough. Of course, that in itself would require a bit of work and from what I've read in recent weeks, Cork County Council is doing its best to kill off Camden under the pretext of "health and safety".

Perhaps sink her for target practice in an area suitable for divers?

The current owner would have an issue with that. They want to fill in the whole place for development, if they can.