MST Building Two Patrol Boats for the UK Navy
Merseyside, U.K.-based boatbuilder Marine Specialised Technology (MST) has been awarded a £9.9-million ($12.9 million) contract to supply two new boats to replace the U.K. Royal Navy's Gibraltar Squadron fast patrol craft used to patrol HMNB Gibraltar and British Gibraltar territorial waters. Construction began in July, and the first vessel is due to be delivered in the third quarter of 2021 followed by the second in the first quarter of 2022. MST will provide four years of local…
Aircraft Carrier Training Facility Opens In UK
A training facility has been opened to prepare Royal Navy sailors to man the first of the Queen Elizabeth-Class carriers, due in 2016. The first of the 65,000-tonne carriers is currently being assembled at Babcock's dockyard in Rosyth, and will be able to take up to 40 aircraft; almost twice the capacity of the Invincible Class carriers. To keep up with the state-of-the-art technology on board sailors and engineers will be trained in a £1m building at HMS Collingwood in Fareham, Hampshire, which has been set out in the same way as an operations room on board the new carrier.
British Naval Vessel Makes First Post-Gaddafi Libya Visit
Survey ship HMS Echo become the first Royal Navy ship to visit Libya since the fall of Colonel Gaddafi. HMS Echo, in the final stages of a 19-month mission to gather ocean data and update nautical charts in waters east of Suez, began her Libya visit with firefighting and damage control demonstrations, tours of the ship, and an extensive look at Echo's impressive hydrographic and oceanographic survey equipment which just a short time before had discovered an underwater 'mountain' the size of Gibraltar in the Red Sea.
HMS Endurance for Falmouth
UK’s A&P Group has won an important multi-million pound sterling Ministry of Defence (MoD) contract to refit the Royal Navy’s Ice Patrol Ship HMS Endurance at its Falmouth shipyard. The contract will run between 14th June and 1st October 2004. A&P Falmouth Commercial Director David Daniel said: “This contract was won against very tough competition. Refit work onboard HMS Endurance will include complete hull blasting and re-painting, general refit work, steelwork and the overhaul of main engines and auxiliary equipment. The 1990 built HMS Endurance, formerly the Polar Circle, is heading back to the UK from her annual deployment to the Antarctic. The refit will run from mid-June until October. A&P Falmouth has just completed a four month long refit to the Royal Fleet Auxiliary RFA Argus.
First Royal Navy River Class Handed Over
Vosper Thornycroft (VT) Shipbuilding’s innovative project to build three Offshore Patrol Vessels for the Royal Navy has reached a major milestone with the acceptance of the first ship. Having successfully completed the trials program, HMS Tyne was handed over at a ceremony in Portsmouth Naval Base after making the short voyage from VT’s Woolston, Southampton, shipyard.The 264-ft. OPVs represent a unique procurement for the Royal Navy. They are believed to be the first ships built and funded by industry for charter to the Ministry of Defense. Under the agreement, VT will finance the $97M, build of the three ships and will charter them to the MoD for an initial period of five years.
Lloyd’s Register Awarded Destroyer Construction Services Contract
Lloyd’s Register has won a contract to provide classification services for the first six of the UK Royal Navy’s Type 45 destroyer, all to be built under survey in accordance with Lloyd’s Register’s Rules and Regulations for the Classification of Naval Ships. The contract was signed on July 2, 2003 at the prime contractor BAE Systems’ office in Filton, Bristol, UK by Martin Robinson, Head of Procurement, Combat Systems, for BAE Systems and Dave Philip, Lloyd’s Register’s Type 45 Project Manager. The vessels will be built in sections at the BAE Systems yard on Clydeside and at the new Vosper Thornycroft facilities at Portsmouth, with final assembly and launch to take place at the BAE Systems Scotstoun yard.
Podded Propulsion Goes Beyond the Cruise Realm
Compelling design and operational arguments in favor of podded electric drives can be expected to transcend any negative impressions formed from the recent clutch of problems and complications experienced with such systems in certain cruise ship and ferry applications. Experience has shown that technical innovation in the maritime field has invariably been accompanied by early setbacks in some shape or form. In an industry where conservatism is the order of the day, and understandably so where assets are subjected to the rigors of the elements as well as the vicissitudes of the markets, those operators willing to be the standard bearers with new technology provide a beacon for the wider maritime community.
