Juan Carlos de la Torre. Escudo Digital/The Diplomat
The Navantia San Fernando shipyard carried out the milestone of laying the keel on Friday of the deep-sea patrol vessel that the company is building for the Royal Moroccan Navy.
This event, held as a work event, was attended by the colonel major of the Moroccan Navy, Mohammed Sallouh, who was received by the president of Navantia, Ricardo Domínguez; the director of Operations and Business, Gonzalo Mateo-Guerrero, and the director of Business for Corvettes and Maritime Action Vessels, Alberto Cervantes.
The keel laying took place on slipway number 3 of the San Fernando shipyard. The placement of the block on the slipway, with the help of cranes, marks the beginning of construction on the slipway where the ship begins to take shape, while the manufacture of the following blocks continues in the various workshops.
The patrol boat, which will be the 565th construction of Navantia San Fernando, will have a length of 87 metres and a total width of 13, and will be able to accommodate a crew of 60 people on board. Its construction will mean more than one million hours of work for the shipyard and its collaborating industry and around 1,100 direct, indirect and induced jobs over three years.
Last January, Navantia San Fernando received a visit from the highest representative of the Royal Moroccan Navy, Rear Admiral Mohamed Tahin, Inspector of the Royal Navy, who supervised the construction work on the patrol boat, the first tasks of which began in July of last year.
The construction of this patrol boat for Morocco also includes a technical-logistical support package (spare parts, tools and technical documentation), including technical training services for the Royal Moroccan Navy personnel in Spain.
The patrol boat is a solution that guarantees long periods of deployment at sea with very low operating and life cycle costs. To this end, the design of its systems aims to maintain operability, maintainability and reliability with a reduced crew.
