Germans replace old patrol boats
The German Government is placing an order this year for three badly needed sea-going police patrol boats to replace obsolete vessels in Baltic Sea operation.
Viktor Scherer at the Interior Ministry’s Procurement Agency in Bonn told Maritime Journal “we are aiming to place an order before the end of 2016”. He noted however that the timing of the orders depended on the outcome of an invitation to tender, being considered by interested shipyards as the New Year got underway.
A budget of €165 million was approved by the Berlin Parliament late last year. Of this, €61.3 million is available in 2016 for building the first two ships, which are expected to enter service in 2018.
The new boats are for service with the Bundespolizei-See – the maritime arm of the German Federal Police – which is responsible for monitoring the country’s 700 kms long North Sea and Baltic coastline.
It operates out of three centres in Neustadt on the western Baltic, Warnemünde on the eastern Baltic and Cuxhaven on the North Sea. Reports said two of the three new boats being ordered will replace obsolete units in Neustadt, north of Hamburg, while the third will replace an old ship in Warnemünde, near Rostock.
Being planned, according to initial tender details issued by the Procurement Agency, are sea-going, steel monohulled vessels with twin propellers. They will be of about 80m in length with a beam of at least 12.6m. Also stipulated in the tender invitation are a top speed of at least 21 knots and a range of 4,000 sea miles at 16 knots. Each newbuilding will boast a helicopter landing pad and storage space for an ISO 20ft container as well as equipment to cargo ship standard. The ships are to be classified by an IACS member company.
The Procurement Agency tender also stipulates that ships offered by builders will have to be of a type which has already been in ocean-going service for at least a year.
The Bundespolizei- See currently has just six boats in service out of its three centres, each backed by crews of 14. The three boats being replaced, all built in the late 1980s, served with the old Volkspolizei in the former GDR before German re-unification. They are described as being “in a technically desolate condition”.
DVD GL classifications run out next year and officials were quoted as saying it was not economically viable to undertake the extensive repairs which would be needed to keep them in service.
Being mustered out when the newbuildings are ready are the two 48.9m patrol boats Neustrelitz and Bad Düben (BP 22 and BP 23) built by Peene Werft and the 65.4m BP 21 Bredstedt, built by Elsflether and Lürssen.
By Tom Todd
