The German Navy's five remaining Type 148 guided-missile patrol boats have been sold to Egypt, along with the Type 760 ammunition transport Odenwald and the Type 701E underway replenishment ship Glucksburg. The first of the missile boats to be handed over, the former Alk, departed German waters on 20 July aboard a heavy-lift ship, and the others were to be transferred on their decommissioning on 16 December of this year. Pictured here is the Dommel, during a farewell cruise to France in mid-September with sisters Fuchs, Lowe, and Weihe. The Weihe—along with the Alk—was built at Cherbourg by CMN, which shared construction of the 20 craft of the class with Friedrich Lurssen Werft in Germany during the early 1970s. The ammunition transport and underway replenishment ship are the first of their types in Egyptian service, and the missile boats are replacing mostly newer Chinese, Russian, Egyptian, and British-built craft. In recent years, most of the ships and craft retired from the German Navy have found new homes in such diverse countries as Georgia, Greece, Turkey, Chile, and Colombia.
The Royal Navy Island-class offshore patrol vessel Alderney is seen entering Portsmouth Harbor on 30 September flying her "paying off" pennant. The five remaining British-operated ships of the Island class have been sold to Bangladesh, which bought sister ship Jersey in 1993 and recommissioned her as the training ship Shaheed Ruhul Amin. The first of Bangladesh's new purchases, the former Shetland, was transferred on 29 July and renamed Karotoa, and the ex-Alderney was to follow on 31 October and will serve the Bangladeshi Navy as the Katatkhaya. The Anglesey is to be handed over next July, and the ex-Guernsey and ex-Lindisfarne will head east after their decommissionings at the end of 2003. The quintet are being replaced in British service by three new fisheries patrol ships, the 1,677-ton, 20-knot Tyne, Severn, and Mersey. The Tyne was to be delivered on 7 November and is to begin her first patrol next month, and the Severn was to be launched this month and the Mersey to enter the water next April. All three will have Royal Navy crews of 30 and are being leased for five years, with an option for a ten-year renewal, outright purchase, or return to the owner, Vosper Thornycroft. Based at Portsmouth, the three are each planned to operate for 320 days per year.
The very successful Army, Navy, and Marine Corps trials with the chartered commercial wave-piercing catamaran Joint Venture (seen here at Southampton, England, on 1 October) have borne fruit for her Tasmanian Builder, Incat, and its U.S. business partner, Bollinger Marine. In September, a larger, Evolution-10B-class catamaran was chartered as the Spearhead (TSV-1X) to the Army's Tank-automotive and Armaments Command. Under the one-year charter, which has two one-year extension options, the 319-foot, 750-dead-weight-ton Spearhead will continue the evaluation of craft of her type in a variety of troop and vehicle intratheater lift scenarios. Unlike the Joint Venture, however, the Spearhead will not have helicopter facilities. In October, a sister ship was chartered by the Military Sealift Command to serve as a much faster but otherwise decidedly less capable replacement for the stricken mine countermeasures support ship Inchon (MCS-12). When delivered next June, the 42-knot ship will have a hangar and support facilities—including an 81 x 50-foot flight deck—for two MH-60S helicopters and, in addition to a crew of 100, will be able to carry 102 support personnel in temporary berths. The new MCS also will be used for logistic support transportation duties and for tests in antisubmarine warfare, coastal patrol, and logistic support to maritime prepositioning ship squadrons. Both catamarans have a considerable vehicle capacity and will be able to launch amphibious vehicles directly into the sea via their stern ramps.