Keel laid for Swedish SIGINT ship

PGZ Stocznia Wojenna has laid the keel for the new Swedish signals intelligence (SIGINT) ship at the Nauta shipyard in Gdynia, Poland, Saab announced on 15 June.

Saab received the contract to design and build the SIGINT ship from the Swedish Material Defence Administration in 2017. Subsequently it selected PGZ’s Nauta Shipyard to perform the construction, launch and early sea trials of the vessel. Before the delivery to the Swedish Navy, the ship’s final sea trials and installation of equipment will be carried out at Saab’s shipyard in Karlskrona, Sweden.

The 74m long ship will have a displacement of 2,200t and will replace the Swedish Navy’s existing HSwMS Orion launched in 1984.

Gunnar Wieslander, head of Saab Kockums, said: ‘Special purpose ships are primarily used for the interception and analysis of radio-transmitted signals and need to be highly reliable and available. Therefore you need highly skilled shipbuilders to build this kind of ship. We are very pleased with the progress of the construction process.’