Ahh to be free from the chains that bind us.
Below please read a story from FishUpdate Magazine published today.
THE Thor, Iceland's new super fishery protection ship, has begun the 14,000 mile journey from the shipyard in Chile, where it was built, to its new base near Reykjavik.
Sailing through the Panama Canal and calling at Boston in the United States and Halifax, Canada on the way she is expected to arrive in Iceland towards the end of the month.
The new Thor has been under construction since 2007 and will become the flagship of the Icelandic Coastguard's fishery protection which includes three other vessels, two helicopters and a surveillance aircraft.
The fleet's job is two-fold - to combat illegal fishing, along with general policing of the seas, and to provide a search and rescue service for fishing vessels that might get into difficulties. The Icelandic Coastguard - its motto is "Always Prepared" - was first established in the 1920s to monitor the country's fishing limits which were then just three miles from shore.
For veteran trawlermen in Grimsby, Hull and Aberdeen, the name "Thor" will have an older resonance. It was an earlier Iceland gunboat called the Thor which clashed with British trawlers and Royal Navy frigates during the cod wars of the 1970s. The gunboat would get in close to try to cut the nets of the British trawlers during a long series of fishing dispute. On one occasion it even opened fire on a British fishery support ship. After that episode the Royal Navy was called in to offer protection to the trawler fleet.
Iceland did offer Britain a 65,000 annual catch quota, but this was rejected by the UK fishing industry and the government (which included the then Foreign Secretary Anthony Crosland, who was also the MP for Grimsby) who wanted a 110,000 ton quota. The dispute ended in eventual defeat for British fishermen when Iceland won its fight for a 200 mile limit.
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