Warning about Ireland

[hpeer]

Dockhead,

Sorry for the problems encountered by your friends. Years ago I ran into a Canadian border guard who randomly pulled me out of line and gave me a shakedown that took hours. I had the car packed with summer vacation stuff they pulled out and then just walked away leaving me the total mess to repack.

My only thought is that your friends got stopped by some poorly trained and over zealous irregulars, who typically dealt with a different “cliental.”

But, frankly, that someone was poorly treated is not surprising considering some of the covid attitudes displayed on this forum and elsewhere. These attitudes give license to others with power issues to act out.

I am sorry you were treated with disrespect here on this forum for your post.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Paul L

The fact the authorities were armed and the yachties didn't like their attitude is irrelevant. So is anyones opinion that the rules should be different.
People doing this just makes it tougher on the next yacht that is actually trying to comply.

Lots of this story simply smacks of “ made up “

Firstly habitually Irish police are not armed. There are no “ border police “ in Ireland they don’t exist. , Immigration and customs is a completely unarmed service.

So just how were they “met “ by armed police ( there are 12 Volvo cars in Ireland each with two armed officers) they would have to be requested by the local unarmed police to attend.

The whole things smacks of a creative story.

Maybe their navigation was off and they sailed into Iceland

All down the coast they would have good mobile phone coverage ( good to 30 miles out ) excellent Coast guard vhf coverage , either means would appraise them of the entry requirements.

Sorry there’s either more to this or it’s exaggerated or someone simply could be bothered checking the entry requirements.

Ireland is a wealthy country with excellent communications infrastructure ,so unless these people were hiding under a rock or simply being wilfully ignorant the rules are easily accessible and understandable.

[Breaking Waves]

Ireland does have a history of taking infectious diseases pretty seriously.

We were there during the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak, and among many other measures, masses at Catholic churches were canceled (for a short period).



The entry officials in Kinsale and Howth were certainly not armed back when we were there.


I suspect things got off to a bad start -

official: 'can I please have your contact tracing forms' (which btw could have been filled out anytime the yacht had any 4g cell connection)
Yachty: "we have not filled them out yet'
official: "hmmm, can I see your vax or test proofs"
Yachty: "One of our crew does not have either"
official: "You guys aren't even trying, leave and you can return when you meet our requirements".
Yachty: Getting a little uppity . . " we will buy some fuel and get some water first"
official: " No you will not, you will leave immediately".

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by hpeer

Dockhead,

Sorry for the problems encountered by your friends. Years ago I ran into a Canadian border guard who randomly pulled me out of line and gave me a shakedown that took hours. I had the car packed with summer vacation stuff they pulled out and then just walked away leaving me the total mess to repack.

My only thought is that your friends got stopped by some poorly trained and over zealous irregulars, who typically dealt with a different “cliental.”

But, frankly, that someone was poorly treated is not surprising considering some of the covid attitudes displayed on this forum and elsewhere. These attitudes give license to others with power issues to act out.

None of these people are “ armed “ , so there something in this story that doesn’t add up. If you run into armed officials in Ireland something serious is afoot. To meet a uniform armed policeman in Ireland means the rapid response team has been called. Ie your a drug smuggler or a terrorist suspect.

What was their port and place of entry in Ireland and did they contact them in advance by radio or mobile ?

To be met by armed police they would have to had to disobey entry instructions and the locals called the armed response unit. This is an extremely unusual circumstance to say the least.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Paul L

They chose both the port of departure and port of entry. In the case of going from Scotland to Ireland it should be easy to comply with the regulations if they had cared to. Why you would think the rules should be interpreted in some casual way for a yachtie that shows up not incompliance is beyond me.. . .

All right, champ, let's hear your plan for easy compliance.


You are leaving Stromness bound for Dublin, where one of your crew has a much-needed doctor's appointment.



A different crew member is not vaccinated -- not because he's an anti-vaxxer but because he's been sailing and out of his home country for longer than the vaccines have been available and has not been able to get vaxxed in other countries.


The regulations require you to arrive with PLF filled out within a certain window (usually 48 hours; don't know about Ireland) and a covid test for the one unvaxxed crewman taken no later than 48 hours before arrival.


These rules were invented for airline passengers and are impossible to fulfill for yachts on long passages. But impossible only in the letter of the rules; the spirit can be fulfilled easily with a tiny bit of flexibility on the part of the authorities.



You have been cruising all over Europe for the last year and in similar situations the authorities were always friendly, flexible and helpful, allowed tests to be taken on the spot, and helped with the PLF (often necessary since many of these forms don't contemplate pleasure vessels).


So what would you have done differently from this guy?


With hindsight he should have called ahead before leaving, but without the benefit of hindsight, how would you know you would be treated so differently than other places? Another variant might have been to break up the trip and stop in another Scottish port less than 48 hours from Dublin, but they were in a hurry to make that doctor's appointment, and anyway had been standing off well offshore for safety's sake.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Breaking Waves

Ireland does have a history of taking infectious diseases pretty seriously.

We were there during the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak, and among many other measures, masses at Catholic churches were canceled (for a short period).



The entry officials in Kinsale and Howth were certainly not armed back when we were there.

No entry officials are armed. Only a particular section of the police are armed , immigration and customs is a civil service role and is completely unarmed.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

None of these people are “ armed “ , so there something in this story that doesn’t add up. If you run into armed officials in Ireland something serious is afoot. To meet a uniform armed policeman in Ireland means the rapid response team has been called. Ie your a drug smuggler or a terrorist suspect.

What was their port and place of entry in Ireland and did they contact them in advance by radio or mobile ?

To be met by armed police they would have to had to disobey entry instructions and the locals called the armed response unit. This is an extremely unusual circumstance to say the least.

These are very nice people so it was certainly not like that.


They radioed ahead and they themselves requested to be met by border guards since they needed help with the PLF and advice on the test, something they knew the marina wouldn't be able to handle.


I've never sailed in Irish waters and have never met an Irish border guard so don't know how they are outfitted, but the UK Border Force ones are certainly armed (and very friendly and helpful in all my experience).


By recounting this story, I am not intending to condemn all of Ireland or her border guards. This may well have been the case of my friends having simply had the bad luck to have met one who had got up on the wrong side of the bed that morning.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

All right, champ, let's hear your plan for easy compliance.


You are leaving Stromness bound for Dublin, where one of your crew has a much-needed doctor's appointment.



A different crew member is not vaccinated -- not because he's an anti-vaxxer but because he's been sailing and out of his home country for longer than the vaccines have been available and has not been able to get vaxxed in other countries.


The regulations require you to arrive with PLF filled out within a certain window (usually 48 hours; don't know about Ireland) and a covid test for the one unvaxxed crewman taken no later than 48 hours before arrival.


These rules were invented for airline passengers and are impossible to fulfill for yachts on long passages. But impossible only in the letter of the rules; the spirit can be fulfilled easily with a tiny bit of flexibility on the part of the authorities.



You have been cruising all over Europe for the last year and in similar situations the authorities were always friendly, flexible and helpful, allowed tests to be taken on the spot, and helped with the PLF (often necessary since many of these forms don't contemplate pleasure vessels).


So what would you have done differently from this guy?


With hindsight he should have called ahead before leaving, but without the benefit of hindsight, how would you know you would be treated so differently than other places? Another variant might have been to break up the trip and stop in another Scottish port less than 48 hours from Dublin, but they were in a hurry to make that doctor's appointment, and anyway had been standing off well offshore for safety's sake.

This is nonsense ,

All over Europe there have been and still are massive restrictions on entry by private yacht. Greece still has a raft of restrictions for example

If they had a medical emergency , a proper phone call or vhf call to the authorities would have put the emergency services on standby and taken him to his apointment

If he had a regular non emergency appointment then there was plenty of time to comply , put into NI etc.

The fact is they did t check or could t be bothered or just” assumed “ and you know what “assume “ stands for right.

As for the “ armed “ part that’s in their imagination or their are suspected drug smugglers.

By the way Ireland has a 72 hour limit in pcr one of the longest around

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

These are very nice people so it was certainly not like that.


They radioed ahead and they themselves requested to be met by border guards since they needed help with the PLF and advice on the test, something they knew the marina wouldn't be able to handle.


I've never sailed in Irish waters and have never met an Irish border guard so don't know how they are outfitted, but the UK Border Force ones are certainly armed (and very friendly and helpful in all my experience).


By recounting this story, I am not intending to condemn all of Ireland or her border guards. This may well have been the case of my friends having simply had the bad luck to have met one who had got up on the wrong side of the bed that morning.

I repeat , I live in Ireland during winter and have sailed it and the U.K. extensively

There are no border guards , there are no general armed police services. There’s is a small armed rapid response unit ( very distinctive 4x4 Volvos ). There’s no permanent on water force . There is NO equivalent to the U.K. border force/agency.

So if you radio ahead and requested to be met by border guards they’d have to invent a force there and then to meet you.

I suspect they were told to not enter and proceeded to do so and were tracked on radar.
Ireland takes public Heath very very seriously.

It should be added that Ireland added a provision that a mere non emergency medical appointment is not grounds to override COVID rules as people here were flouting the rules on the basis of “ apointments”

A yacht radioing in to request the presence of armed police would be such a highly unusual request that I’m surprised they just weren’t all arrested.

I’m being serious here. If the armed response unit was called out for this , this requires an order at superintendent level. If this then turned out to be a trivial issue I’m surprised they just didn’t arrest the lot of them.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by flightlead404

those three statements are false

Prove it..

[goboatingnow]

I should add that U.K. is now not part of the EU travel bubble. Ireland requires U.K. ( excluding NI) travellers to self quarantined when they arrive in Ireland unless they can show full vaccine status or proof of recent recovery from the disease

Hence an unvaccinated yacht arrival would face being quarantined on the yacht for 10 days anyway.

There is no provision on the Maine notice 16 of 2021 https://www.sailing.ie/Portals/0/Ope...ions_Rev-1.pdf to fill out the entry form on arrival

[HeinSdL]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

All over Europe there have been and still are massive restrictions on entry by private yacht.

Well, not quite.

Part of the problem we have is that there is simply so much not known in terms of what is going on. On the one hand, the guidelines/rules would appear to make things almost impossible (see quote above), on the other and in practice I don't and didn't see any impact at all on freedom of movement within the EU.

Touring Italy and the various islands this summer we were not asked once about anything related to covid. But I did maintain the log book, had tests done if needed, in case we were asked whence we came, but if I hadn't known there was a 'pandemic' going on, it would have been a regular summer. Apart from the introduction of the ridiculously named green pass in Italy which was/is required to go anywhere inside.

There is a lot of fear mongering going on, everywhere, and this really needs to stop. But don't forget, people in fear are far easier to govern & control than people without and even thinking a bit for themselves too. (And thinking for yourself does not necessarily mean running to the nearest pharmacy to get vaxxed.)

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Van Der Beek

With a survival rate of 99,8% the measures taken for the past 18 months have made no sense what so ever. None at all. It's all been fear driven hysteria.
.

More like Profit driven fear mongering and the chance of a grab at increased powers.

[GordMay]

... By recounting this story, I am not intending to condemn all of Ireland or her border guards...

Any yet, you chose to title your rant “Warning about Ireland”, concluding

...I guess it would be well to avoid Ireland if you're cruising in the area...

[MicHughV]

growing up in Africa...we had the tsestse fly problem, as well as malaria and other diseases ..but we all seemed to manage without causing an uproar about it..

This Covid issue is a bit over the top for me....but I don't understand the reluctance of people to getting the vaccine ??? The vaccination shot is free in the US, so not even a lack of $$$ is a good excuse...

The Bahamas and other Caribbean Islands also have their Covid protocol in place.....it's their country, so they can call the shots..