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Bei Hai Jiu 111 / Sea Rescue Ship 111
Ocean-going Search and Rescue Tug

A new high-tech rescue ship equipped to put out fires at sea arrived in Shanghai in January 2006 and will serve to strengthen Shanghai's abilities to deal with emergencies near the mouth of the Yangtze River. The rescue vessel was designed by a local shipping institute and was produced by a shipping company in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province. Officials with the Shanghai-based Donghai Rescue Bureau said the ship, Donghai Rescue 111, is the largest rescue vessel with the most functions to perform rescue tasks in the country. The ship can hold 100 rescue workers and has equipment to reduce the influence of powerful tides and maintain balance. Fire hydrants on board the vessel can shoot water as far as 120 meters away on sea. To facilitate whole-scale rescue tasks, it also has a landing pad for rescue helicopters on its deck. It can sail up to 12,000 sea miles on a single trip and the maximum speed is 20.13 nautical miles an hour.

China's most advanced professional rescue ship "South Sea Rescue Ship 111" was put on service in Haikou base of South Sea Rescue Bureau. The 98-meter-long and 15.2-meter-wide ship can sail 12,000 sea miles continuously on the sea. It can also withstand typhoon of maximum 14 on the wind scale and break ice.

The mission of these ships is illustrated by the indicident in which sixty four Chinese crew members embarked on a Chinese rescue ship on 22 October 2012 after being saved by Japanese rescuers from a boat that caught fire in waters near Okinawa, Chinese maritime rescue officials announced. All the sailors rescued by Japanese boats were transferred to Chinese ship East China Sea Rescue 111 by around 9:46 a.m., according to officials of the East China Sea Rescue Bureau under the Ministry of Transport. The Chinese vessel arrived at 7 a.m. in the sea area where the accident happened. The 64-strong crew of Mingyang, a refrigerated fishing ship, were plucked from danger in waters near Japan's Okinawa by Japanese rescue ships early in the morning after the fire. East China Sea Rescue 111 will salvage the fire-razed Mingyang, which measures 144 meters long and 13.6 meters wide, with a transport capacity of 12,703 tonnes. Mingyang was located at 450 nautical miles southeast of Dachen Island of east China's Zhejiang Province.

"South China Sea rescue 116" is a new ship, formally delivered in March 2011. Although the age of the ship is not high, in more than two years, the ship was deployed 15 times, rescued 425 personnel in distress, and rescued 12 ships in distress. As a professional rescue vessel, the ship must go wherever the waters are often the most urgent, with the biggest storms, and most are not smooth sailing.