Taiwan coast guard cutters patrol Palau's waters and sail farther south than ever before

Two Taiwan Coast Guard Administration cutters, the 4,000-tonne Chiayi and the 1,000-tonne Penghu, have carried out a two-day joint maritime security patrol with Palau in the Pacific nation's exclusive economic zone and reached farther south than any Taiwanese coast guard patrol ship before them, the coast guard said on 11 October.

The patrol began on 9 October in Palau's exclusive economic zone about 200 nautical miles southwest of Koror state. Two senior officers from Palau's maritime security and fish and wildlife protection division, Lt. Jim Kloulechad and Sgt. Gerald Ringang, sailed aboard the Penghu to inspect the zone together with the Taiwanese crews, according to the Liberty Times, which carried photos supplied by the coast guard.

At 2pm on 10 October the two ships reached Pulo Anna, the southernmost point of the mission, an island 217 nautical miles from Koror and 1,220 nautical miles from Eluanbi at Taiwan's southern tip. The position, 4 degrees 38 minutes north and 131 degrees 58 minutes east, took the cutters south of the 5th parallel and set a new southernmost record for a Taiwan coast guard ship, the agency said.

Kloulechad thanked Taiwan's coast guard for joining the patrol of Palau's waters and said the friendship between the two sides mattered a great deal to Palau. He noted that only five people live on Pulo Anna and said it was good to be able to come and check that they were safe and well.

A visit timed for National Day

The cutters docked at Malakal harbour on 6 October at the start of the coast guard's 2026 long-range training and maritime diplomacy mission. On 8 October Palau's President Surangel Whipps Jr and his wife attended a reception aboard the Chiayi marking Taiwan's National Day, and on the morning of 9 October the two countries raised their flags together on the cutter's flight deck.

The ceremony was attended by Taiwan's ambassador to Palau, the coast guard's deputy director-general, Palau's Minister of State Gustav Aitaro and its public safety director Curtis Elobt, along with members of the local Taiwanese business community and the police university cadets sailing with the ships, close to 100 people in all.

Before the patrol, the coast guard said the visit would include joint patrols with Palauan law-enforcement agencies to strengthen maritime enforcement and emergency response cooperation and help keep Pacific waters safe and orderly. Taiwan and Palau, one of Taipei's diplomatic allies, signed a coast guard cooperation agreement in 2019 and have since held joint patrols, search-and-rescue drills and personnel exchanges under it.

A long-distance test for a new cutter

The deployment is also the first long voyage for the Penghu, which was delivered on 21 July as the fifth of the coast guard's 1,000-tonne patrol ships and assigned to a mobile patrol unit in southern Taiwan. The coast guard said sending the two ships together would strengthen its far-seas operations and let it check how reliably the new ship's equipment performs over a long passage.

Fourth-year students and teachers from the water police department of Central Police University are training aboard. The mission follows the coast guard's first such voyage in 2025, when the cutters Hualien and Taipei sailed together on a long-range training and goodwill trip, building up experience in two-ship formations, open-ocean duty and international cooperation.