TWO British warships joined Allied navies on a sweep of the North Sea and English Channel, the prelude to a major European conference to discuss fishing stocks.

HMS Tyne joined Holland’s Barend Biesheubel in the North Sea and eastern Channel, while Tyne’s sister Severn worked with France’s Themis in an operation run by the Marine Fisheries Agency who monitored progress via satellite from its headquarters in London.

The joint crackdown unfortunately coincided with inclement weather – despite swapping fishery officers and observers among vessels, the quartet were able to conduct just one boarding during the combined operations.

With the sweep over, the vessels headed up the Thames to Chatham for a break from patrols and to offer their input for more than 50 experts from across the European Union eager to maintain fishing stocks in these waters – and determined to see that transgressions by fishermen were appropriately dealt with.

“It’s vital that fishery protection is even-handed in European waters,” said David Holliday, operations director at the Marine Fisheries Agency.

“We want fishermen to be assured that every effort is being made to treat all nationalities exactly the same.”

Meanwhile, the third of the River-class fishery protection vessels, HMS Mersey, has also been battered by the elements.

The Portsmouth-based warship arrived on the Clyde for a spell of Operational Sea  Training, but only after she was hounded by hurricane-force winds in the Irish Sea, with gusts of up to 75mph battering the small ship at times.

OST lasted for two ‘challenging’ weeks, before the Mersey men and women were allowed to let their hair down in Glasgow.

The ship became the first RN vessel to berth at the new science centre in the heart of the city.

Like Tyne, Mersey has also been working with the Dutch ship Barend Biesheubel.

She exchanged Lt Tom Williams and S/Lt Ben Martin for two Dutch inspectors which allowed the respective ships to operate in their counterpart’s waters – effectively encompassing the entire southern North Sea; in the past some trawlermen have attempted to evade boardings by scurrying for UK or Dutch waters.

A busy spell of fishery protection work closed with a trip up her namesake river to her affiliated borough of Sefton on Merseyside for five days of catching up with good causes, community projects and civic leaders.