ISLAMABAD – Pakistan Navy (PN) has commissioned the first of two 2,300tonnes multirole corvettes ordered from Dutch shipbuilder Damen in 2017.
Named PNS *Yarmook* (F-271), the ship, which the company said is based on aDamen Offshore Patrol Vessel (OPV) 1900, entered serviced in a ceremonyheld on 13 February at Constanta Port in Romania that was also attended bythe PN’s Vice Chief of the Naval Staff Vice Admiral Muhammad Fayyaz Gilani.
In a 14 February statement Damen said that *Yarmook*, which had beenlaunched on 17 May 2019 at the company’s facilities in Galati, Romania, iscapable of performing “a variety of maritime operations” and can transportboth a helicopter and an unmanned aerial vehicle.
The ship, which can also carry two high-speed rigid-hulled inflatable boats- of 11.5 m and 6.5 m in length – has a capacity of two twenty-footequivalent units (TEUs) for special mission operations.
The second vessel of the class, *Tabuk*, which was launched on 3 September2019, is set to enter service in May.
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The Dutch shipbuilder had signed a contract with Pakistan’s Ministry ofDefence Production on 30 June 2017 to build two multipurpose OPVs for thePN.
PN officials had previously stated that these vessels “will act as forcemultipliers in enhancing [the] navy’s capability of safeguarding maritimefrontiers and will offer more flexibility in the conduct of [the] PakistanNavy’s initiative of independent Regional Maritime Security Patrols in theIndian Ocean Region”.
