Vittoria Shipyard delivers dive training vessel to Tunisia

AUGUST 4, 2016 — Italy’s Vittoria Shipyard  has delivered the new  Zarzis A710 dive training ship to Tunisia. It will support diving and security operations in the Mediterranean.

Delivered by the shipbuilder in just seven months, the Zarsiz A710 was ordered by the Tunisian Defense Ministry under a Tunisian-Italian cooperation agreement signed in spring 2015.

The Zarzis A710 is a 36 m x 8.6 m monohull and can carry 12 crew and 18 divers.  

The vessel is equipped with a decompression chamber; a system to produce, purify and store breathable air and diving gases; and a diving bell that can take divers to depths down to 100 m and is deployed/retrieved by a LARS (launch and recovery system).

A sophisticated DP2 positioning system combines the thrust of the main propellers with that of the bow thrusters to keep the vessel on station.

Power is provided by two MTU 12V2000 M84 engines, each developing 1,220 kW @ 2450 rpm, giving the vessel a top speed of 17 knots (32 km/h) and a cruising speed of 12 knots.