Armon Vigo to build Civil Guard's largest ocean patrol for €35 million
The vessel will be between 75 and 85 meters long and will replace the "Río Miño", built in 1984
Armón Vigo, the Asturian group of shipyards owned Hijos de J. Barreras facilities since last year, adds and continues. The factory has been awarded one more order, in this case a large patrol boat that will become the largest available to the Civil Guard. Specifically, the firm will build an ocean unit between 75 and 85 meters in length that will serve as a replacement for the veteran Río Miño, built in 1984 and refurbished by Armón at its Burela shipyard in 2007. The firm was awarded the order with an offer of 34.9 million euros.
Two years after entrusting the design to the Ghenova technical office (for €190,575, VAT included), which has one of its offices in Vigo, the Benemérita Maritime Service launched last year the tender to find a builder for this new oceanic patrol boat, the first commissioned since Gondán Shipyard, also from Asturias, was awarded the manufacturing of the Río Segura, delivered in 2010.
It will include a helipad
As Ghenova reported at the time, among the ship's characteristics are an overall length of between 75 and 85 meters, a beam of between 12.5 and 14 meters and a draft of between 3 and 4.5 meters. With a monocoque type design, the unit will have a 12x12 meter landing platform for helicopters at the stern, which will allow refuelling operations for a medium-sized helicopter.
The Civil Guard Maritime Service will use it to fulfil patrol tasks, repression of smuggling or control of illegal immigration, in addition to being able to be used for rescue functions, fight against pollution or humanitarian aid tasks. In fact, it will have a multipurpose platform of 20 meters in length to provisionally allocate castaways.
The Civil Guard opted for a procedure negotiated with publicity to find the best possible shipyard, so neither the specifications nor the shipyards that bid were made public through the State Contracting Platform. What did become known was the award to Armón Vigo of the order.
Although the firm awarded the order is officially the one located on the San Gregorio curve in the city of Vigo, the group haven´t decided yet to build the vessel at Astilleros Ría de Vigo, the company created by Armón, with 15 million of capital stock, with which the Barreras productive unit was awarded.
Source: Faro de Vigo