Keel laid for Portuguese multi-purpose ship

Damen Shipyards has begun construction of a multi-purpose ship for the Portuguese Navy with the laying of the keel and a ceremonial steel cut at the Galati shipyard in Romania.

The contract for the ship was signed by Portugal and Damen in November 2023 and is funded following a tender process by the European Union’s Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). The facility is part of NextGenerationEU which is an economic recovery package to support EU member states that were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The ship, the NRP Dom João II, was described by chief of Portuguese naval staff Adm Gouveia e Melo as “a multi-domain ship, specifically in the air, surface, and subsurface components [and] can carry out numerous and varied missions [and includes the use of] drones and robotics”.

“The open modular architecture allows for quick adaptation according to the missions and tasks assigned to it,” Melo said. 

The ship is capable of transporting and launching uncrewed underwater vehicles, uncrewed surface vehicles and uncrewed aerial vehicles with a 94m x 11m flight deck for the latter.

The 107m vessel features 650m² deck space, suitable for the transportation of up to 12 20-foot Equivalent Unit (TEU) containers. These can be used to house mission-specific modular systems such as hospitals, hyperbaric chambers and remotely operated vehicle equipment.

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