A TRINITY vessel on fire in the Dover Straights today is proving a challenge for emergency services on both sides of the Channel. But it's not a real emergency.

It's all part of a simulation to test crews' knowledge of how to deal with real crises at sea. It is one of the biggest mock rescue exercises ever held in the Channel.

The training exercise, named Manchex 2004, was to test how coastguards from the UK and France would cope with a shipping accident in the Channel.

The exercise was part of a series of events being held to mark the centenary of the Entente Cordiale.

The Entente Cordiale is the popular name for agreements signed in London 1904 by the British Foreign Secretary and the French Ambassador.

KM-fm's Ally Barnard has been in Dover to watch the operation and has this report...