— The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration (MSA) cutter Haixun 31.
AsiaOne News is reporting one of China’s largest and newest civilian patrol vessels, the Haixun 31, is expected to arrive in Hawaii September 4, for five days of exercises and mutual familiarization.
Similar in size to a 378, it will be bringing a helicopter with it. Helicopters are less common on Chinese law enforcement vessels, than they are on USCG ships.
Last year the same ship visited Singapore. Their Maritime Safety Administration is relatively large at approximately 20,000 employees, but is only one of five agencies that perform Coast Guard like functions for China.
The ship is going to be a close contemporary of the Offshore Patrol Cutter with both the new frigate and the OPC programs scheduled to deliver their first ship in 2020. The Type 26 is expected to displace 5,400 tons full load, so it is about 20% larger than the National Security Cutters and perhaps twice the size of the OPC. Still some of the thinking might be applicable.
Propulsion:
“For propulsion, BAE has opted for a conventional but upgraded hybrid system combining gas turbines for top speeds and diesel generators for a fuel-efficient quiet mode, and these generators will provide significantly higher speeds than those of the Type 23.”
The 4,300 ton Type 23 cruises 7,800 miles at 17 knots so presumably they are talking about 20 knots or more on diesel-electric alone, for this relatively large ship. Like the now 22 year old type 23s, they will replace, the Type 26s’ generators will supply power for both propulsion and hotel services.
Boats, Mission Modules, and Aircraft:
“For greater flexibility of the combat systems, the ship will have an integrated mission bay and hangar, allowing the Navy to more easily deploy varying numbers of helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and boats according to the situation.”
The frigate, like many new designs, incorporates provision for reconfigurable space. What they have done differently is make this space adaptable for trade-offs among helicopters, unmanned vehicles (air, surface, and sub-surface), and boats.
Computer Systems:
“This basically means having a single computer system that can support the multiple pieces of software used throughout the ship, rather than installing separate hardware systems and local area networks from each supplier.
“Using blade server technology originally developed for the banking industry to provide reliable, high-power processing, the computing environment will be able to run different “virtual” operating systems to cope with the variety of programmes the ship will use, from navigation to combat management.”
Common hardware sounds like a great idea, but some are already questioning the choice of a Windows operating system.
More:
There are lots of conceptual drawings, a couple of videos, and additional links along with exhaustive comment (over 500) here.
Navaltoday.com is reporting the third of a planned five SWATH (small waterplane-area twin-hull) patrol boats has been delivered by a shipyard in Riga. This is hardly new technology, the Coast Guard Yard built the 26.7 meter, 228 ton SWATH Kaimalino in 1973, but it is certainly an unconventional choice.
SWATH always seemed to have great potential, but has not found many advocates. I’m wondering what disadvantages they are aware of that are not obvious.
Earlier we talked about the decision to specifically exclude use of a stern ramp in the specifications for the Offshore Patrol Cutter, “No Stern Ramp for Boats on the OPC-Mistake?”
I recently found a study that addressed this question. It’s conclusions seem particularly applicable to the Coast Guard:
The inclusion of a stern ramp has advantages in terms of deployment and recovery speeds, but ultimately a stern ramp lacks availability in the higher sea states in which a davit is still capable of operation. The stern ramp availability is driven by sill depth and pitch motions, whilst a davit needs to consider a range of constraints associated with the environment, including pendulum effects, hoisting speed and the safety of deck crew.
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Hence, a vessel designed to operate in benign to moderate sea conditions and requiring rapid boat response times may be appropriate for a stern ramp, as illustrated by their use mainly in coast guard and smaller patrol vessels. A vessel operating in higher sea states such as offshore environments, including conducting MCM and environmental assessment may select davit arrangements, accepting the increase in handling procedures to gain a greater environmental envelope. A flexible, multi-role naval vessel is therefore likely to err towards the later, because of its greater flexibility and sea state envelope. A mixed solution may offer a compromise between these but suffers from the need to find space for both systems and requires training to cover several deployment methods, although the rapid response would be beneficial when operating in constabulary missions and may be an advantage to consider. In this case, the stern ramp is the secondary method of deployment and the mission space would be located midships with the davit system(s).
They also found that the relative success of stern ramps varied with the size of the “host” vessel, with it becoming more problematic as the size of the host vessel increased relative to the boat to be launched and recovered.
The Marine Log is reporting India has contracted for a new large buoy tender, and the resulting ship looks very different from what we are accustom to.
“The 71.2 m x 16.0 m vessel will be equipped with a 35 t crane and will have a 16 m diameter helicopter deck. It will be powered by two 2,000 kW diesels driving two C.P. propellers and will have two bow thrusters and one stern thruster, each rated at 590 kW.”
Frequent contributor Bill Wells has written a post concerning generalists verse specialists within the Coast Guard, particularly in regard to BMs. You can read the post here.
Does the Coast Guard still have nothing comparable to MOS to differentiate skill sets?
A bit over 100 years ago Captain Robert F. Scott, and Norwegian Roald Amundsen raced to reach the South Pole. Scott’s ill fated party lost the race and died attempting to return, after finding Amundsen’s group had arrived 33 days earlier. The remains of the ship that carried the Scott’s party, SS Terra Nova, has been located off Greenland. More here.
SS Terra Nova, was much like the cutter Bear, both were built as sealers in Dundee Scotland. After the expedition, Terra Nova played various roles until it was damaged by ice during WWII on a supply run to Greenland in 1943. The Coast Guard icebreaker Southwind rescued the survivors.
There seems to be proliferation of non-state entity “navies” lately. We have been expecting protests from “Green Peace” against drilling in the Arctic.
Informationdissemination.net/20has some information about the “Sea Shepherds” efforts to expand their fleet, and it looks like the next vessel may be either an icebreaker or at least an ice strengthened vessel. They also note how these groups seem to splinter and create additional new organizations.
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