South Hunter buoy (off Larne) now has metocean instruments attached which tweet weather conditions every 20 mins. These include average wind, gusts, wave height and water temperature. It is available at the following link... https://mobile.twitter.com/southhunterbuoy

Belfast Coastguard has now taken over from Clyde Coastguard which has closed.

Belfast now covers an area which extends from Lough Foyle to Carlingford Lough including Lough Neagh and Lough Erne, and the Scottish coastline from Mull of Galloway to north of the Isle of Jura.

Dates: Between 11–15, 18-22, and 25-29 June 2012 inclusive

Times: : BETWEEN 0900 BST AND 1800 BST.

Location of jammers: Land based within 5km of N52° 00.881’ W003° 38.518’ (SN873365 – Dixie’s Corner)

Frequency: 24 MHz bands centred around 1176.45 MHz (GPS L5), 1227.60MHz (GPS L2) and 1575.42MHz (GPS L1).

Total Power: Up to 10 Watts EIRP. Whenever possible the transmissions will be at lower powers.

It is stressed that, as in previous exercises, Safety of Life operations will at all times take precedence over exercise activities.

Sunday 26th February was much warmer than previous weeks and the wind was just strong enough so that there was the odd capsize but nothing to major that our sailors would not be able to handle it. The wind shifted a lot to start with from going from the south west through to the south east. Nevertheless the race got underway from the north east mark and the course was course 4 to begin with.

Swedish tidal energy company Minesto has now finished this period of testing of a scale model of the Deep Green kite tidal power plant, in Strangford Lough, Ballyhenry Bay, about 1.5 km northwest of Portaferry, Co. Down.

BelfastCoastguard have put in place a one mile exclusion zone within Belfast Lough to facilitate a ship to ship oil transfer taking place on 31st Dec 2011

Co-ordinates are as follows:

54º 42.5N

005º 34.5W

Further updates can be obtained by listening to Belfast Coastguard @ Channel 16

The wind finally arrived on Sunday but thankfully the temperature remained at its unseasonably high. This gave near perfect conditions for exciting racing in Sunday’s Stena Line Icebreaker series.

The MoD has informed Ofcom of the following GPS jamming exercise to be held between the 6th - 14th April 2011

Location: GPS jamming will take place from Loch Ewe (N57° 51.9' W005° 41.1').

The Jamming Control Authority will be Director JTEPS with the function being executed by the Master Controller at CRC Boulmer (civ 01665 572311).

Enquiries from Ofcom stakeholders should be addressed to InfoGPS.Notices@ofcom.org.uk quoting reference JRS0012.

For full details of dates and times continue reading this story

Seago 150 and 175 Newton Lifejackets including Junior Lifejackets may have a defect which could result in serious injury.

Full details of the affected lifejackets can be found at
http://www.seagoyachting.co.uk

At approximately 4.00 am on the 2nd April the 1.2MW Seagen tidal turbine was offloaded from the massive crane-barge, Rambiz, so that it is now standing on the seabed of the fast flowing waters in Strangford Narrows.

Northern Ireland Fire & Rescue Service (NIFRS) and the Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA) officially opened the new Emergency Rescue Station for Rathlin Island on Friday 1st June 07.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) will launch a new and improved Maritime Safety Information (MSI) service on 1st February 2007.

On Sunday 13th Aug the yacht Lazy life on passage from the Hamble to CarrickFergus sent a mayday relay to Portland Coastguard after sighting a yacht in front of them letting off red handheld flares.