The Marine Institute’s RV Celtic Voyager is being up for sale after 25 years of service with the Galway based scientific institute.
The Celtic Voyager came into service in 1997 as Ireland’s first custom-built multi-purpose research vessel.
Over the past quarter century it has provided marine scientists, researchers and crew members with many years of experience at sea, and enabled us to deepen our ocean knowledge.
The research vessel has played an essential role in fisheries scientific research, and a vital role in seabed mapping in Irish waters, as part of the INFOMAR programme.
More than 200 shipwrecks around the coast of Ireland including the RMS Lusitania, have been mapped by the Celtic Voyager.
In 2007, the survey of Galway Bay revealed for the first time a detailed seafloor and geology of the bay, confirming the location of the Galway Bay Fault.
Last year it was formally replaced by the RV Tom Crean, which came into service in July 2022, four and a half years after the €25 million project was first announced.
The Celtic Voyager is currently lying afloat in Howth, Co. Dublin. Interested parties can contact the sole agent (Hanseatic Offshore Brokers) to register interest and to arrange viewing. The closing date for registration of interest is Friday, September 1 2023.
In its first year of service, the replacement RV Tom Crean has racked up more than 32,000 nautical miles at sea, equivalent to circling Ireland approximately 46 times.
The ship is named for the renowned seaman and explorer from Kerry who undertook three ground-breaking expeditions to the Antarctic in the early years of the 20th Century.
