The patrol vessel “Arnomendi” will be based in Ferrol

The patrol vessel “Arnomendi” (P-63), one of the three patrol vessels from the General Secretariat of Fisheries delivered to the Navy for inspection and fishing surveillance campaigns, will change its home port to Ferrol starting June 15, 2016. The ship left Cartagena last Saturday and will arrive in Ferrol next Wednesday, from where it will operate from then on.

The aim of this change of base is to bring the vessel closer to the areas where fishing surveillance and inspection missions are carried out in the Cantabrian Sea and in the national and international fishing grounds of the North Atlantic, reports the Spanish Navy.

The offshore patrol vessel “Arnomendi” is the third of the “Chilreu” class and was built at the Construcciones Navales Paulino Freire S.A. shipyard in Vigo (Pontevedra), commissioned by the then Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. It was launched in January 2000 and entered service in December of the same year.

It is the only one of its class that has not adopted the name of an island of Spanish sovereignty, following the tradition of the rest of the vessels of its class. Its name comes from a mountain in Guipuzkoa located along the coastal strip, although it was initially going to be called "Alegranza," as noted in some of the initial documents.

Since its delivery, the vessel has carried out a large number of campaigns in the national fishing grounds of the Canary Islands and Cádiz, has supported the northern bonito fleet in the Cantabrian Sea and the bluefin tuna fleet in the Mediterranean Sea, and has participated in international campaigns in NAFO (North-West Atlantic Fisheries Organization) waters off Newfoundland, as well as in NEAFC (North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission) in Iceland.

Photo: Spanish Navy