Thursday, 26th November 2009 - 13:51CET

New Maltese patrol boats completed

An Australian shipyard has completed the building and fitting out of four new inshore patrol boats for the Armed Forces of Malta and will hand them over shortly.

The 21-metre boats were built by Austal and have been conducting sea trials.

They will replace two Swift-class boats and a Bremse-class patrol boat which are to be withdrawn from the Maltese fleet. The Swifts had been donated to Malta second-hand by the American government in 1971 while the former East German Bremse patrol boat was bought from Germany after German reunification.

The new €9.3m Austal boats, partly financed by the EU, were built to Maltese specifications and will be tasked with patroling the harbours and coastal waters. They will be equipped with machine guns, fire-fighting and rescue equipment.

The new boats have a stern ramp for the launching and retrieval of a rigid hull inflatable boat, as is the case with the offshore boats in the AFM fleet, the American-built Protector class P-51 and P-52 and the bigger Italian modified Diciotti class P-61.

The four boats will be shipped to Malta on a cargo ship.

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Comments

J Martinelli (on 28/11/09)

@ Maria Zammit

To answer your question: Maybe because they would have cost more, not as good a product, late delivery, over budget and that is not counting on the GWU finding an iota of an excuse to halt production, including the refusal of any foreign contracts for specific specialized jobs.

The Australian shipyard delivered on budget and on time without any labour hassles.

David Schiavone (on 28/11/09)

They are very nice boats & powerful ones, but why didn't we build them in Malta? Provided we have the Malta Shipbuilding entity......

Joseph Bartolo (on 28/11/09)

I would propose that from now on, our future governments, will build our own patrol boats in the future and possibly much larger sea and coastal craft like frigates for our own security. I am more than sure that those workers both at the ship building and drydock areas are more than capable in doing a fine job, as they did on the Gozo Ferry Ships.

Yes more work for the maltese work force including our ship builders and repairers, with decent salaries and conditions.

We need a real Maltese Republican Navy, to secure our territorial and inland waters and to keep illegal activities within our meditterean boarders.

Stephen Borg Cardona (on 28/11/09)

They would probably have cost twice as much had they been built here.

Maria Zammit (on 27/11/09)

Why weren't they built here?

Stephen Farrugia Sliema (on 27/11/09)

They are patrol boats when you stop the illegal immigrants at sea.

They become ferry boats, when the political leadership has the wrong underpinning.

Do you think they are petrol boats or ferry boats ?

Feel free to answer.

Stephen Farrugia / Rightwing

Anthony A.Mifsud (on 27/11/09)

Well done to the ship builders.
very sad news, we could have easily constructed in Malta like the Gozo Channel ships.
This smells somewhat dirty.
Tony