Belfast Coastguard is responsible for the whole of the Northern Irish coastline, from Lough Foyle in the North to Carlingford Lough in the South, and two inland waterways Lough Neagh and Lough Erne.

The district topography varies from sheer cliffs, especially on the North and East coasts, to rocky foreshores and sandy beaches. There are four large sea loughs, Lough Foyle, Belfast Lough, Strangford Lough and Carlingford Lough, as well as the two inland loughs. Strangford Lough and Lough Erne are scattered with many small islands and pladdies, making them both hazardous to navigation and extremely difficult to search.

The District has several busy commercial ports - Belfast, Londonderry, Warrenpoint and Larne, and the volume of shipping in and out of these ports is increasing daily.  Belfast Port alone handles around 2 million passengers and half a million freight units annually. There are also many small harbours and marinas used by pleasure craft of all sizes and types.  In addition there are three major airports, the main one of which handles around 5 million passengers per year.

Belfast District handles several hundred incidents annually, the majority of them involving small pleasure craft such as motor cruisers, yachts, jet skis etc. By far the greatest number of incidents involves gear failure, breakdowns or vessels out of fuel. Persons stranded by incoming tides and vessels aground is the next most common type of incident, closely followed by persons getting into difficulty due to adverse conditions. Many of these incidents could be avoided by people checking weather conditions and tide times prior to going out, or by having suitable navigation charts. Medical evacuations, persons in the water and flare reports are also quite frequent. We also get around equal numbers of other types of incident, such as missing or overdue persons or vessels, divers in difficulty, cliff rescues etc.

To try to cut down on the numbers of incidents several campaigns are taking place, targeting sea anglers, caravan sites, divers and, in fact, all vessels that are not covered by a code of practice.  This will involve Coastguards visiting fishing tackle outlets and caravan sites delivering a safety message.

Belfast Coastguard works very closely with a number of other services within and outside of the District.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), although ultimately responsible for Lough Neagh and Lough Erne, have handed over control of Search and Rescue on the loughs to the Coastguard. There has also been a recent agreement that all requests for helicopter assistance from inside the Province (from PSNI or Ambulance Service for example) should be made through Belfast Coastguard.

The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service has assisted with pumping out of flooded vessels and also mud rescues.  They are now providing a response on Lough Erne and Lough Neagh, with members being trained by Coastguards, particularly in marine communications.

Belfast Coastguard also has close links with Northern Ireland Mountain, Cliff and Cave Rescue, alerting the teams and tasking helicopter support where required.

Helicopter assistance comes from several sources; Royal Navy Sea King from Prestwick in Scotland, RAF Sea King from Valley in Anglesey and Sikorskys from Dublin and Sligo in the South of Ireland.  Also available are non winch-fitted helicopters from inside the Province.

Belfast Coastguard has always worked closely with the Irish Coast Guard, but recently this working relationship has become much closer. Since the departure of the Wessex helicopter from the Province in 2002, we have been making use of the Irish Rescue helicopters much more frequently. There are no borders in SAR, and when incidents are close to the Ireland/UK border, the two services work in conjunction with one another to provide a satisfactory outcome. At Belfast Coastguard we are working hard at all times to improve this relationship.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), of course, provides lifeboat cover in the Province. There are nine lifeboat stations in Northern Ireland, providing nine inshore lifeboats and four all-weather lifeboats. There is also a private rescue service, Lough Neagh Rescue, which has two lifeboats on the Lough. This service is run by a charity, which was set up several years ago after a young man drowned in the Lough.

Although the generic title is Belfast Coastguard, the MRCC is situated at Bangor Harbour. It has twenty-one staff divided into four watches A, B, C & D. Each Watch has one Watch Manager in overall charge of Search and Rescue (SAR) operations, two Watch Officers, and two or three Coastguard Watch Assistants. The Operations Room is manned 24 hours a day, and deals with SAR incidents in the District by means of the VHF radio and telephone networks.

A District Management Team is responsible for the operational and administrative running of the Coastguard side of the District under the guidance of the Area Operations Manager and the Rescue Co-ordination Centre Manager.

A team of six Marine Surveyors works in the Marine Office at Bregenz House. They are responsible for developing and setting Ship and Seafarer standards, and for ensuring these standards are met through vessel inspections.

The District is divided into two sectors:

Belfast North Sector – Northern Ireland/Irish Republic border, Culmore Point to River Lagan Weir,

Belfast South Sector – River Lagan Weir, Belfast to Warrenpoint Harbour

There are two Sector Managers in Belfast District; Belfast North Sector Manager covers the area from the north shore of Belfast Lough round to Lough Foyle; Belfast South Sector Manager covers the area from the south shore of Belfast Lough round to Carlingford Lough. Sector Managers’ duties include managing Coast Rescue Teams, Fishing Vessel Inspections, Liaison with other authorities within their sector, and many other things besides. Coast Rescue Team members are volunteers who are called upon by the Operations Room as and when required. They have a number of responsibilities, including information gathering on behalf of the Operations Room, coastal searches and cliff and mud rescues. Belfast District has fifteen Coast Rescue Teams as follows: Castlerock, Portrush, Ballycastle, Rathlin Island, Red Bay, Larne, Portmuck, Bangor, Ballywalter, Portaferry, Whiterock, Newcastle, Kilkeel, Lough Erne and Lough Neag