Trinidad & Tobago ship successfully completes sea trials

Glas­gow, Unit­ed King­dom: Scar­bor­ough, the sec­ond of three Off­shore Patrol Ves­sels built by BAE Sys­tems for the Trinidad & Toba­go Coast Guard, has suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed sea tri­als off the west coast of Scot­land and is on track to be deliv­ered in Octo­ber.

Trinidad & Toba­go Off­shore Patrol Ves­sel Scar­bor­ough On sea tri­als off the coast of Scot­land Source: BAE Sys­tems Click to enlarge

Named after Tobago’s cap­i­tal, Scar­bor­ough embarked on an exten­sive pro­gramme of tri­als in July, with a com­bined BAE Sys­tems and Trinidad & Toba­go Coast Guard crew on board, ready to put the ship through her paces. 

Scott Jamieson, Inter­na­tion­al Pro­grammes Direc­tor at BAE Sys­tems’ Sur­face Ships divi­sion, said: “Scar­bor­ough exceed­ed her con­tract­ed 25 knot speed dur­ing sea tri­als and out­per­formed manoeu­vra­bil­i­ty require­ments set out by the Gov­ern­ment of the Repub­lic of Trinidad & Toba­go. This out­stand­ing capa­bil­i­ty will undoubt­ed­ly be a valu­able asset to the Trinidad & Toba­go Coast Guard, help­ing to sup­port its ongo­ing bat­tle to beat the drugs trade in the region.” 

Dur­ing sea tri­als, the Scar­bor­ough achieved a speed of 25. 38 knots and com­plet­ed turn­ing cir­cles in 3. 5 ship lengths and a stop­ping dis­tance of 3. 7 ship lengths. In addi­tion, the crew test­ed the ship’s main plat­form sys­tems, pow­er and propul­sion, and com­po­nents of the com­bat sys­tem, includ­ing the guns and the main sur­veil­lance radar, which is vital in the fight against the drugs trade. 

Scar­bor­ough is part of a con­tract to build three 90m Off­shore Patrol Ves­sels for the Trinidad & Toba­go Coast Guard which will be used for a range of Eco­nom­ic Exclu­sion Zone man­age­ment tasks, from dis­as­ter relief oper­a­tions to tack­ling drug run­ners. Under the agree­ment, the UK Min­istry of Defence is pro­vid­ing tech­ni­cal advice, qual­i­ty assur­ance and oper­a­tional sea train­ing for the 60 man crews. 

BAE Sys­tems will also pro­vide main­te­nance and in-ser­vice sup­port to the ships for the next five years. This fol­lows the work the Company’s engi­neers have been under­tak­ing for the past three years to the sup­port the two inter­im ves­sels that BAE Sys­tems pro­vid­ed to the Trinidad & Toba­go Coast Guard in 2007. 

The design of these high­ly ver­sa­tile off­shore patrol ves­sels is based on the proven Riv­er Class ships in ser­vice with the Roy­al Navy. Their abil­i­ty to accom­mo­date a diver­si­ty of roles makes them an attrac­tive option to Trinidad & Toba­go Coast Guard as well as navies around the world. BAE Sys­tems is already work­ing with Bangkok Dock in Thai­land, which is using the same core plat­form design to build a sim­i­lar ves­sel for the Roy­al Thai Navy. 

About BAE Sys­tems

BAE Sys­tems is a glob­al defence, secu­ri­ty and aero­space com­pa­ny with approx­i­mate­ly 107,000 employ­ees world­wide. The Com­pa­ny deliv­ers a full range of prod­ucts and ser­vices for air, land and naval forces, as well as advanced elec­tron­ics, secu­ri­ty, infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy solu­tions and cus­tomer sup­port ser­vices. In 2009 BAE Sys­tems report­ed sales of £22. 4 bil­lion (US$ 36. 2 billion). 

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion please contact: 

Kristi­na Crowe, BAE Sys­tems
Tel: +44 (0) 239 289 6232 Mob: +44 (0)7540628673
kristi­na. crowe@baesystems.com

Gillian Churchill, BAE Sys­tems
Tel: +44 (0) 141 957 2150 Mob: +44 (0)7540628325
gillian. churchill@baesystems.com

Issued by: 

BAE Sys­tems, Farn­bor­ough, Hamp­shire GU14 6YU, UK Tel: +44 (0) 1252 384605 Fax: +44 (0) 1252 383947; 24hr media hot­line: + 44 (0) 7801 71773 

Source:
BAE Systems 

Face­book and/or on Twit­ter