Northrop Grumman Corporation’s Sperry Marine is supplying a suite of bridge electronics for a new coastal research vessel built by McTay Marine Ltd for the NATO SACLANT Undersea Research
Center of La Spezia, Italy.
Sperry Marine will provide dual interswitched X-band and S-band BridgeMaster E 250 radars
with 18-inch high-resolution flat-panel displays, a
Navipol fluxgate compass and Navitwin III
universal data repeater. Sperry Marine will also supply an SR180 MK 1 gyrocompass as part
of the ship’s DP system provided by Kongsberg Simrad.
The new 92-ft. steel vessel, named Leonardo, will operate as an Italian public vessel, listed on a special register within the Italian Ministry of Defense. She was constructed at the McTay Marine shipyard in Liverpool and is classed by the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS). The new ship will replace SACLANT’s aging 20 meter workboat Manning and will be equipped with a wide array of facilities to conduct a variety of shallow-seas scientific research operations.