Cod Wars

[GraemeR]

Just picked up a really nice photo of HMS Eastbourne returning from the 'Cod War'. The Forth Rail Bridge is in the background.

The damage to the ship was caused by being rammed by, I understand, the Icelandic vessel Thor.

Sorry for the quality of the pic but the photo is that big that I can't fit it onto my scanner.

Graeme

[Jim Maclean]

Graeme, just a small correction, that's actually the Leander Class frigate HMS Diomede (F16). Eastbourne's Pennant No. was F73. I believe at the time of the Cod Wars Eastbourne was being used as a training ship for HMS Caledonia.Superb photo nonetheless.

Jim

Edited September 16, 2005 by Jim Maclean

[GraemeR]

Jim, Thanks for that. I was going by what the guy who gave me the 3 pics told me. Nice to know the for certain though.

Cheers

Graeme

[Jim Maclean]

Bit more info here,

HMS Diomede

The only other interesting little snippet, to be filed under 'useless info' is that the funnel markings show her as 'half leader' (2 i/c) of the 1st Frigate Squadron. That's the white edged black band over the numeral '1'. The senior ship in the squadron had the funnel painted black from where the bottom of that band is. All other members just had the black cap to hide the soot stains. All wore the squadron numeral.

[John]

Was the Cod Wars actually about 'Cod fishing areas' or was it territorial waters?

[james Stewart]

Was the Cod Wars actually about 'Cod fishing areas' or was it territorial waters?

From what I recall it was about fishing areas around Iceland.

The Icelanders worried about stocks and their own industry placed a ban on other nations fishing around Icelandic coast .

The 9.00pm BBC news had some amazing footage of the Icelandic fishery protection vessels cutting trawl nets , playing cat and mouse with Royal Navy ships .

Thor does spring to mind, the sjkipper of that vessel being a very determined individual.

Lots of trawlers lost their gear and RN ships came home with bent sides and hand rails.

[Hinrik]

James and others,

This is not so correct. Here are some facts about the 3 "Cod wars" between Iceland and the UK:

1) 1958 Iceland moves it territorial waters line, from 4 miles out to 12 miles. A lot of foreign ships were coming up to the shore line and over fishing the waters, with big trawlers.

2) 1972-73 Iceland moves its territorial waters boundary to 50 miles. This was done to prevent the fishing stocks from being depleted, due to over fishing by big UK trawlers. Conflict ended with a fishing agreements between the 2 countries.

3) Nov 1975 - June 1976 Iceland moves the territorial line to 200 milies in accordance with other nations doing same regarding natural resorces. This was the biggest one, bringing the countries close to war. Icelandic Coast guard ships used a locally invented contraption to cut the cables of Foreign ships fishing nets, with some measure of safety to both ships.

A number of Royal Navy ships enterd the area and start chasing and ramming the much smaller Icelandic ships. Some shots were fired. I think that the behaviour of the Royal Navy Commaders was bad, and its just luck that nobody got killed when they were ramming the ships. In one case, a UK fishing ship was leaving the 200 mile zone, but was ordered my a Naval Captain to return back into the zone and fish there.

Iceland cut the diplomatic ties with UK, and threatened to close down the Nato base in Keflavik, bringing the Americans in on the Diplomatic descussion.

One of our current Coast Guard Captains, is a friend of mine and was a Shipsmate on one of the Icelandic ships. I see from reading about this on English speaking websites that some of the writing there has error?s and seams a bit bias toward the British point of view. Iceland was and still is very dependable on the fishing industry, and we can see today that this was a right move towards protecting the fish stocks, when we look at what has happened to the fishing industry in the Sheatlands islands for an example.

Regards

Hinrik Steinsson

[Guest Rick Research]

It was always much worse here in the U.S., where we kept to the ancient "as far as a cannon can fire" 3 mile limit for an insane length of time attempting to assert that "standard" with the Soviets in the hot Cold days...

and as a result we were fished COMPLETELY out, vacuum cleaned to the sea bottom by Soviet trawlers whose crews could be seen waving at us on shore. (Needless to say, OUR ships were never allowed in 3 miles from THEIR shores! )

Which pushed the fishing grounds for New England fisherman out into water claimed by Canada, which has led to ALMOST as bad situations from time to time. Less warfare, but as coastal fisherman are now far out to sea and usually alone instead of in small port groups, the lost lives when ships sink are worse than they ever were in 150 years.

Fish. Life. Death.

[Bob Hunter]

I'm poorly informed on this issue, Rick, probably because of geography but are you suggesting foul play by both American and Canadian fishermen?

[james Stewart]

Hinrik, I do think that the Icelandic Goverment were right to extend their limits and to protect stocks.

My memories of the Cod Wras are those which I recall from News footage.

As you rightly say over fishing has destroyed fish stocks .

I think there was some conflict between Canadian fishermen and Spanish trawlers in more recent times.

A few years ago I saw Irish boats in Killybegs flying the Canadian Flag as a measure of support .

Thanks for your insight into the "war".

Best Regards

james S

James and others,

This is not so correct. Here are some facts about the 3 "Cod wars" between Iceland and the UK:

1) 1958 Iceland moves it territorial waters line, from 4 miles out to 12 miles. A lot of foreign ships were coming up to the shore line and over fishing the waters, with big trawlers.

2) 1972-73 Iceland moves its territorial waters boundary to 50 miles. This was done to prevent the fishing stocks from being depleted, due to over fishing by big UK trawlers. Conflict ended with a fishing agreements between the 2 countries.

3) Nov 1975 - June 1976 Iceland moves the territorial line to 200 milies in accordance with other nations doing same regarding natural resorces. This was the biggest one, bringing the countries close to war. Icelandic Coast guard ships used a locally invented contraption to cut the cables of Foreign ships fishing nets, with some measure of safety to both ships.

A number of Royal Navy ships enterd the area and start chasing and ramming the much smaller Icelandic ships. Some shots were fired. I think that the behaviour of the Royal Navy Commaders was bad, and its just luck that nobody got killed when they were ramming the ships. In one case, a UK fishing ship was leaving the 200 mile zone, but was ordered my a Naval Captain to return back into the zone and fish there.

Iceland cut the diplomatic ties with UK, and threatened to close down the Nato base in Keflavik, bringing the Americans in on the Diplomatic descussion.

One of our current Coast Guard Captains, is a friend of mine and was a Shipsmate on one of the Icelandic ships. I see from reading about this on English speaking websites that some of the writing there has error?s and seams a bit bias toward the British point of view. Iceland was and still is very dependable on the fishing industry, and we can see today that this was a right move towards protecting the fish stocks, when we look at what has happened to the fishing industry in the Sheatlands islands for an example.

Regards

Hinrik Steinsson

[John]

Hinrich,

Thank you, that was an interesting response. What does Iceland's Navy consist of today?

Regards,

John

[Hinrik]

John,

Iceland has no Navy, only Coast Guard, which has small patrol ships and helicopters. There is no military force in the country, but of course the population is just about 300.000. We do have a small NATO peacekeeping force in Afganistan.

Regards

Hinrik

[Chris Boonzaier]

I'm poorly informed on this issue, Rick, probably because of geography but are you suggesting foul play by both American and Canadian fishermen?

Foul play is probably to strong a term, but given the topic, something just did not smell right.....

[Guest Rick Research]

There have been gunboat incidents, seizures, shots and shouting from the naval end. God knows, I never meant to imply that rival fishermen make each other disappear-- it is that lone boats out too far alone have no help in sight when bad things happen, as they often do. Ships have sunk on the weight of iced nets over the side capsizing the boats, broaching in high seas, and so on. In the old days, whole towns went out TOGETHER and stayed within sight of each other throughout. Inane government limit regulations which do not allow "fishing days" to be banked despite bad weather push financially squeezed fishermen out on dangerous days because a day lost to fishing is a major permanent chop in keeping afloat monetarily.

Fishing is a hard life and a poor business and if governments kept out of it and left the brave crews with the guts to DO it alone, there'd be fewer problems all around. My own local Lake Chargoggagoggmanchaugagoggchaubunagungamogg purportedly means "You fish on your side and I'll fish on my side and nobody fishes the middle" which is and always has been good advice.