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Navy to take delivery of flagship vessel
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The navy is expected to take delivery of the first Advanced Offshore Patrol Vessel (AOPV) which is currently at the completion stages at Goa Shipyard Ltd in India, in June this year. It has commissioned two 105m APOV vessels to be built. The other one is to be delivered next year.
The navy crew who are expected to steer one of the AOPVs got onboard the ship to acclimatise themselves to the state-of-the-art facilities and technologies of the ship.
The new AOPV is intended to conduct patrols, policing, search and rescue, surveillance and pollution control missions in Sri Lankan territorial waters. With its inclusion in the Sri Lanka Navy fleet, it will soon become its flagship vessel.
The vessel has an overall length of 105.7m and width of 13.6m. Apart from the displacement capacity of 2,350 tonnes the vessel also features a helipad for convenient helicopter landing. The AOPV offers spacious accommodation for the comfort of 18 officers and 100 sailors. Befittingly the vessel has an endurance of 4,500 nautical miles to carry out its surveillance operations.
The commencement of the production of these AOPVs officially was initiated in May 2014 and the unslipping of the vessel was executed in June last year. On December 15 last year, the second 105m AOPV was ceremonially unslipped, an important milestone in the construction of the ship, where the vessel is taken through a slipway from land to the water and tested in water for the first time.