THE French Navy ship D’Entrecasteaux arrived in the country yesterday after three days of sailing.
Its captain, Lieutenant-Commander Penoit Bariller, said the trip to Fiji was a smooth one as they didn’t encounter any blue boat incidents.
Blue boats are wooden boats that set sail from villages in Vietnam to poach fish in Pacific Islands.
These boats are marginally registered fishing vessels and are painted blue to blend well with the ocean and be undetectable to marine radar, as the vessels do not carry any electronic radar.
Lt-Cdr Bariller said his crew, while patrolling New Caledonia where the fleet of the French Navy is located, arrested crew members of five blue boats for poaching.
“No blue boats around Fiji waters when we approached, we’ve been travelling for about 10 to 15 days and we haven’t seem a single blue boat. We are thinking they may come back,” Lt-Cdr Bariller said.
“For my crew, we arrested one (blue boat) and for the other crew four (blue boats). There were 17 fishermen we arrested. They were poaching in the West part of New Caledonia because this area has many fish and sea cucumbers.”
