By Claude Mills, Staff Reporter THE FRENCH frigate, Ventose, is docked in Jamaica on a diplomatic mission to strengthen Franco-Jamaican relations. But after today, it heads back out to the open seas in pursuit of its larger mission as a narco-fighting machine.
In the French lexicon, ventose denotes the sixth month of the Revolutionary calendar (February and March) the windy month.
And as its name would imply, the Ventose has been blowing an ill wind into the lives of attempted narco-smugglers transporting cocaine from South America to Europe, by relentless interdiction operations.
"We do search and rescue operations, provide humanitarian assistance to persons in cases of disaster, and we also fight narco-smuggling by attempting to locate and intercept ships running drugs between South America and Europe," 41-year-old Captain Jean Frederic Plobner, the commanding officer of the Ventose, said.
GREAT SUCCESS IN NARCO FIGHT
As part of its visit here, the French crew played and got a sound beating from the Reggae Boyz national team. However, the crew has met with great success in the arena of narco-smuggling.
"Last year, we recovered three tonnes of cocaine travelling on shipping vessels from Venezuela to Europe. This year, we have recovered half-a-tonne of cocaine in the Caribbean from go-fast boats leaving Venezuela and Colombia," Captain Plobner said.
The frigate, built in 1993 in a French civilian shipyard in West France, is stationed in the island of Martinique, but patrols strategic sections of the Caribbean Sea in search of narco-smugglers. The vessel has a helicopter which is described by the captain as a 'military version of the Dolphin'.
The frigate utilises a helicopter, with snipers aboard who attempt to disable go-fast boats by shooting out their engines. A jet-propulsion boat from the frigate, equipped with two 175 horsepower engines, then intercepts the vessel, and commandeers the boats in question.
WELL EQUIPPED
The frigate is also armed with a 100-millimetre artillery gun which is used to "fire warning shots at boats we want to intercept".
"Sometimes, a special counter-terrorism team of 15 to 20 persons from Toulon, near Marseilles, in South France comes on missions. Two or three star shooters come on the helicopter, while the rest chase the go-fast boats on rubber inflated boats (RIBs)," Lieutenant Jean Baptiste Soubrier revealed.
"We have only been able to recover a half-tonne of cocaine this year because sometimes, by the time we get to the go-fast boats, there is nothing on board, so it is either they threw the drugs overboard or were on their way to get them. But the vessels sometimes have as many as 26 containers of fuel, enough for a long trip."
The ship is docked at the Caribbean Cement Pier complex until today. Members of the media were taken on an informative tour of the navigation deck, cook's gallery, and its flight deck on Friday. Members of various Corporate Area schools were also treated to tours of the 3,000-tonne vessel.
