Australian vessel drops anchor off Chennai port

CHENNAI: The Australian Border Force’s (ABF) largest patrol vessel ‘

Ocean Shield

’ arrived at

Chennai port

on Thursday as part of international cooperation. It will leave the port on Saturday. During the stay, Indian Coast Guard and

Australian Border Force

will take part in a joint exercise and later play a friendly volleyball match to promoted interoperability between the two maritime forces.

Ocean Shield was one of the several Australian vessels that took part in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 that disappeared in March 2014.

Australia's high commissioner to India Harinder Sidhu welcomed the Australian Border Force’s largest patrol vessel in Chennai. Sidhu said, “Australia now operates the largest and most capable maritime surveillance and response fleet it has ever deployed.” This is the first time an Australian Border Force vessel is visiting India. “It will deepen our engagement with India's civil maritime security authorities,” Sidhu said.

ABFC Ocean Shield

’s visit is a reciprocation of the visit by the

Indian Coast Guard Ship Sankalp

to Australia in December 2014. Australian Border Force commissioner

Roman Quaedvlieg

, who is on board Ocean Shield, said, “Australia values our strong relationship with India. This visit provides an important opportunity to strengthen our cooperation and address maritime security threats including trafficking of drugs and firearms, people smuggling, piracy and illegal fishing.”

The ship was constructed as an offshore support vessel by STK OSV, Tulcea, Romania and was later inducted as ABFC ‘Ocean Shield’, an offshore patrol vessel in June 2012. On the bow of the ship is a medium-sized helipad. Ocean Shield has 1,000sqmt deck area for cargo and equipment. It is commanded by ABF Superintendent

Alan Champkin

.

The ship has a complement of 16 officers and 36 sailors. As part of the official programme, ICG headed by ADG V S R Murthy and ABF headed by commissioner Roman Quaedvlieg held deliberations for mutual cooperation on various issues concerning cooperation on SAR amd sharing of information on maritime challenges.