The first of Portugal’s new air-independent propulsion-capable submarines was handed over to a Portuguese naval crew this past June in Kiel, Germany. The submarine, named the Tridente and numbered S 160, arrived at her new home, the naval base in Lisbon, on 2 August. The Tridente is one of two Type 209PN boats built for Portugal at Germany’s Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft shipyard. A second unit of the class, expected to be commissioned in 2011, has been named the Arpão and numbered S 161. The Arpão is currently undergoing sea trials off the coast of Norway. The two Type 209PN submarines were ordered in 2004 and cost a total of roughly 800 million euros. These new units replace the aging French Daphné-class submarines that entered the Portuguese naval service in the late 1960s, the last of which, the Barracuda, is set to retire by the end of 2010.
Sea trials began in July for the first of the Royal Brunei Navy’s new Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs). The Darussalam, namesake of the class, is 80 meters long and was built by Lürssen Werft shipyard in Bremen, Germany. The new OPVs are armed with a single 57-mm gun forward of the bridge and are fitted with a large helicopter-landing deck aft. Carrying the pennant number 06 painted on her hull, the new warship is one of three OPVs intended to replace the three Nakhoda Ragam (F2000)–class frigates that were ordered in 1998 and built by BAE systems of Scotstoun, but never accepted by Brunei’s government. The new Darussalam-class ships will join four 41-meter Ijhtihad-class patrol boats also being built by Lürssen Werft.
Thirty-two ships, five submarines, and personnel from 14 nations took part in the 22nd annual Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise hosted by the U.S. Navy in July. RIMPAC is the world’s largest multinational maritime exercise, and this year’s event turned out to be the largest ever held. Navy personnel from Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, France, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Netherlands, Peru, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Thailand, and the United States all took part. One of the highlights of the event included three sinking exercises involving the destruction of retired U.S. Navy warships, including the ex-USS Anchorage, Monticello, and New Orleans, the latter a decommissioned Iwo Jima–class amphibious assault ship pictured here as she sank beneath the waves off the coast of Hawaii. These sinking exercises involved 12 surface-to-surface engagements and included the live firing of more than 1,000 rounds of naval gunfire from 20 surface combatants, as well as the employment of some 76 laser-guided bombs.