Polish shipyard lays keel for Swedish Navy SIGINT ship

Marcin Dąbrowski, Chairman of the Management Board, Nauta Shiprepair Yard, and Gunnar Wieslander, Senior Vice President and head of Saab Business Area Kockums

JUNE 15, 2018 — The keel-laying ceremony for the Swedish Navy’s new signals intelligence (SIGINT) ship took place today at the Naval Shipyard, in Gdynia, Poland. The event was attended by representatives from Saab, the Polish Armaments Group (PGZ) and invited guests.

Saab was awarded the contract to design and build the SIGINT ship, which will replace the Swedish Navy’s existing HMS Orion, by the Swedish Material Defense Administration FMV in 2017. Subsequently it selected Nauta Shiprepair Yard, part of the PGZ Group, to perform the construction, launch and early sea trials of the vessel. Cooperation in ship construction between Saab and PGZ is a direct result of an agreement, signed in late 2016, to establish a close partnership between Saab and PGZ in the planning and delivery of naval programs.

“Special purpose ships are primarily used for the interception and analysis of radio-transmitted signals and need to be highly reliable and available. Therefore you need highly skilled shipbuilders to build this kind of ship. We are very pleased with the progress of the construction process, and it was a pleasure to attend the keel laying ceremony at the Naval Shipyard, our partner in this project,” said Gunnar Wieslander, Senior Vice President and head of Saab Business Area Kockums.

“The keel-laying ceremony was an important event in this special shipbuilding project, and we are pleased to celebrate it with our Swedish partners. We know the special purpose vessel is very important for the Swedish Navy and we are treating the construction as a high priority undertaking,” said Marcin Dąbrowski, Chairman of the Management Board, Nauta Shiprepair Yard.

The steel cutting for the ship, which will be 74 meters long with a displacement of 2,200 tonnes, took place in March 2018. Before the ship is delivered to the Swedish Navy, it will undergo final sea trials and installation of equipment at Saab Kockums in Karlskrona.