Taiwan fortifies patrol vessels against collisions

Safety At Sea
Date: September 20, 2019
By: Martina Li, correspondent

Due to frequent encroachments of Chinese fishing vessels in the Taiwan Strait and recent incidents involving Chinese naval ships, the Taiwan Coast Guard will install anti-collision systems on 17 newly built patrol vessels.

The Taiwan Coast Guard announced on 19 September that in light of past collisions between its patrol ships and Chinese vessels, it had studied Japan Coast Guard’s patrol vessel large-class (PL) vessels, which feature anti-collision systems.

While the Japanese PL vessels range between 1,000 and 3,000 gt, the Taiwanese vessels are much smaller, at 100 gt.

The glass fibre hull of the Taiwanese Coast Guard vessels means that any collision poses danger to the personnel, as well as obstructing their duties.    [FULL  STORY]