A 30-metre French-flagged yacht has been successfully removed from a Mowi Ireland salmon farm off Clare Island in County Mayo after crashing through two floating pens.
The near-70-year-old Rara Avis, a flat-bottomed schooner based on the design of traditional Thames barges, went over the floating collar of one pen at Mowi’s Portlee Smolt site before coming to rest inside a second pen. The incident was attributed to an apparent navigation error.
There were 25 people aboard the yacht at the time. No injuries were reported, and those on board were temporarily transferred to Clare Island while preparations were made to recover the vessel.
The pens contained around 100,000 post-smolts weighing approximately 500 grams each. To protect the fish during the recovery operation, Mowi transferred them to the 2,200-cubic-metre wellboat Inter Atlantic.
The wellboat was brought in from another Mowi site in southern Ireland and remained involved while the yacht was towed back over the floating collar and removed from the pen.
Following the recovery, divers inspected both pens through which the yacht had passed. Mowi said the inspections found no damage that had resulted in a containment breach.
Ben Hadfield, chief operating officer for farming at Mowi in Scotland, Ireland and the Faroe Islands, said the response operation had been carried out successfully and praised both emergency services and the Mowi Ireland team.
The incident occurred at Mowi’s post-smolt facility at Clare Island, at the entrance to Clew Bay.
