Publication - Factsheet

Marine and fisheries compliance: fleet and aircraft

Published: 26 April 2019
Directorate: Marine Directorate
Topic: Marine and fisheries

Information about Marine Scotland directorate's fleet of marine protection vessels (MPVs) and aircraft.

Vessels

Britain's sea fisheries have been protected and controlled by the authority of Parliament for nearly 200 years, but in 1882 responsibility for protecting Scottish waters was given to the Fishery Board for Scotland.

Fleet Gathering, 26 June 2008

The first vessel that the Board took over was a former Royal Navy sailing cutter "Vigilant", which had worked for some years on protection tasks. Over the years, new ships were added to the fishery protection fleet and responsibility for managing the task of fishery protection was transferred at different times to various Government bodies, including the Scottish Fisheries Protection Agency and now Marine Scotland Compliance.

Currently, Marine Scotland Compliance has three ships in its fleet of Marine Protection Vessels (MPVs):

MPV Minna was built at Ferguson's Shipyard, Port Glasgow and was launched in 2003. She is 42 metres in length and has a gross tonnage of 781. She has a crew of 15, a top speed of 14 knots and is used mainly for inshore enforcement tasks.
MPV Jura was built at Ferguson's Shipyard, Port Glasgow. She was launched in 2005 and entered service in March 2006. Currently the largest vessel in the fleet - at 1 tonne heavier than the MPV Hirta - she is 84 metres in length and has a gross tonnage of 2,181. She has a crew of 17, a top speed of 18 knots and is used mainly for offshore enforcement tasks.
MPV Hirta is the newest of our ships and is the same type of ship as the FPV Jura. Built at the Remontowa Yard in Gdansk, Poland she entered service in 2008. She is 84 metres in length and has a gross tonnage of 2,181. She has a crew of 17, a top speed of 18 knots and is used mainly for offshore enforcement tasks.

Aircraft

Marine Scotland Compliance owns two Reims Cessna Caravan II F-406 aircraft (Watchdog Alpha and Watchdog Bravo), which are used for aerial surveillance as part of our fisheries enforcement responsibilities. The current aircraft were delivered in 2008 after being built for Marine Scotland Compliance at the Reims factory in France.

The aircraft are currently based at Inverness Airport and responsibility for providing aircrew and maintenance is contracted out to Airtask.

The aircraft are tasked daily by the Fisheries Monitoring Centre, taking account of enforcement priorities identified following an analysis of available information resources.

One of the aircraft is fitted with a visible light and infra-red video camera. This camera also has a laser illuminator which aids vessel identification in low and no light conditions.