LUZ DE MAR or MIGUEL DE CERVANTES

[aukepalmhof]

Lifesaving and cleaning of maritime waters and the fight against pollution, control of registration and flags flown by civil vessels, as well as the regulation of their dispatch, assistance, rescue, tugging, discoveries and maritime extractions, planning and control of maritime traffic, registration and control of civil maritime personnel are some of the tasks performed by maritime rescue (Salvamento Marítimo). The Sociedad de Salvamento y Seguridad Marítima , maritime rescue, was founded in 1992 as an organism belonging to the Ministry of Development ( Ministerio de Fomento) and the General Department of the Merchant Navy. Its organization is structured into Rescue Coordination Centres set throughout the 8.000 km of coastline and deal with all sort of emergencies and SOS situations at sea. In order to carry out these tasks, the Maritime Rescue Service has an aircraft and boat rescue fleet with rescue ships, tugs, speed boats, rescue helicopters and fixed wing aircraft all specially designed for life rescue and fight against pollution at sea. For this last purpose, Salvamento Marítimo also counts with oil-spill barriers and mobile tanks for oil storage and its transport to other parts of the country. Spain belongs to the International Maritime Organization, the UN specialized agency responsible for improving maritime safety and preventing pollution from ships and it's also committed to technical cooperation. Since seas and oceans have no borders, the Spanish maritime rescue service is coordinated with the maritime services of neighbouring countries creating a world rescue chain. On behalf of the IMO, it has been assigned responsibility over an area of a million and a half square kilometers, three times the size of Spain. The stamp depicts maritime and air units in rescue operations at sea.


The vessel on the left is a Batch 1 ALUSAFE 2000 class of which there are approximately 25. They weigh 39.7 tons and dimensions are 20.20 x 5.6 x 1.03.Batch 2 have a break in the black rubbing strake which is labeled `Rescue Zone' in black on a yellow rectangle.

The vessel on the right is a SASEMAR 1 Class of which there are two - LUZ DE MAR and MIGUEL DE CERVANTES For the last six or seven months MIGUEL DE CERVANTES has been present in Gibraltar Bay with a watching brief while salvage work is being carried out on the Panamanian bulk carrier NEW FLAME which grounded 1 mile south of Europa Point, Gibraltar. The grounding occurred following a collision between the NEW FLAME and the Danish tanker TORM GERTRUDE on 12 August 2007, in which the NEW FLAME sunk.

Details on these two ships are; Equasis gives the vessels as Pollution Control Vessels, Bureau Veritas as tug and fire fighting ship, while a other source gives her as multipurpose salvage and rescue tug, oil spil response vessel.
Both are built on the yard of Astilleros Armon Vigo.S.A., Vigo, Spain for Sociedad de Salvamento y Seguridad Maritima (SASEMAR), Madrid.
LUZ DE MAR built under yard No 42.
Launched under the name ECOSAR BOREAL but before delivery renamed in LUZ DE MAR.
Tonnage 1.780 grt. 534 net, 1.190dwt., dim. 56 x 15 x 7m., length bpp. 51.48m., draught 6 meter.
Powered by two 8-cyl. Carterpillar-MAK 8M32C diesel engines, 10.434hp (7.680kW), twin controllable Schotel pitch rudderpropellers, speed 16.4 knots.
One Schotel transverse thruster 400 kW.
Crew 18 and accommodation for an other 8 persons.
July 2005 completed. Registry port Santa Cruz de Tenerife. IMO No 9320104.

MIGUEL DE CERVANTES built under yard No 43.
Same tonnage as LUZ DE MAR, dim. 56 x 14 x 7m., length bpp.48m, draught 6m. (as given by Bureau Veritas, all other sources give the same dim. like her sister.)
Other details the same as her sister except she has two Azimuth truster controllable pitch propellers, speed 14.5 knots.
January 2006 delivered. Port of registry Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
IMO No 9320116.

Spain 2008 0.31 Euro, sg?, scott?

Source http://www.miramarshipindex.org.nz Bureau Veritas. Mr. Peter Crichton.
Spanish Philatelic Bureau; Neil Rush's http://www.navynuts.com/SASEMAR.php this is a subscription site