The bulk carrier,Nordic Barents, with the Galway Harbour pilot boat alongside in Galway Bay.To the right, in the background, the Martello tower at the Flaggy Shore in Co. Clare can be seen.
The bulk carrier ship, Nordic Barents , docked in Galway over the weekend, having sailed across the Atlantic from Venezuela. The ship was built in South Korea (by Daewoo) in 1995 and in 2010, it became the first non-Russian bulk carrier to sail through the Northern Sea Route. The route enables ships to sail from northern Europe to the Pacific without using the Suez Canal, a saving in time of about 40%. Instead, the ship sailed through part of the Arctic Ocean (via the Barents Sea, the Kara Sea and the East Siberian Sea before passing through the Bering Sea), most of which is in Russian territorial waters. Though the Nordic Barents required an ice-breaker to carry its cargo of 40, 000 tons of iron ore from Norway to China (and is designed to sail through icy seas), climate change means that the route is open for longer during the summer and more and more ships are using the route.
One of the newest ships of the Irish Naval Service, the LÉ George Bernard Shaw, passing the Nordic Barents bulk carrier in Galway Bay.