The French factory ship which caught fire 70 miles west of Galway yesterday is due to be examined in Galway docks today by surveyors from the Maritime Survey Directorate.
One of the 27 crew on board the French-registered ship, Scombrus, was airlifted to hospital suffering from smoke inhalation while the vessel was en route in to Galway.
The alert was raised by Valentia Coastguard and relayed to the Galway harbourmaster at 4 a.m., when it was reported that there was a fire in the hold.
Another French vessel escorted the ship into Galway and three units of Galway Fire Brigade were sent out in a pilot cutter to tackle the blaze. A large amount of cardboard and packaging on board fuelled the blaze, which took several hours to extinguish.
The Aran island lifeboat and Galway inshore lifeboats stood by the ship while a Shannon-based helicopter, which had airlifted acrewman earlier, also returned to the scene.
However, no airlift was necessary, and a medical assessment of the crew was carried out on board by the Galway inshore lifeboat's honorary medical officer, Dr Paddy Maher. The Galway harbour master, Capt Brian Sheridan, said there was no pollution risk from the ship. The vessel would be docked in Galway when the fire was completely extinguished, he said.
In Donegal, Irish Coast Guard officials are still in discussions with the owners of the Panamanian-registered gas-oil tanker, Princess Eva, on transferring the 59,000 tonnes of gas oil from ship.
The vessel, which has hairline cracks on its deck, is anchored in Inver Bay.
