Damen Shipyards Group of the Netherlands has introduced a new range of multi-role auxiliary vessels for its naval clients.

The vessels, with the addition of supplementary modular mission equipment, can be used for mainly littoral naval tasks such as explosive ordnance clearance and disposal, diving operations, torpedo recovery and overhaul, ROV and UAV deployment, search and rescue, and submarine support.

The largest version can operate worldwide on the ocean as well as in littoral waters and features additional capabilities, such as disaster and humanitarian relief, oceanography and naval training support.

"The idea behind these vessels is to create a basic platform that can assist in a variety of tasks through the selection of the required mission configuration, e.g. coastal transport, submarine support or coastal infantry operations," said Damen Shipyards Gorinchem's Principal Naval Advisor Jan van der Burg, a retired Vice Admiral of the Royal Netherlands Navy. "The stimulus to switch from the traditional one-to-one replacement is to lower the total cost of ownership without losing capability and capacity."

The new range of vessels announced at the Oceanographic Survey Vessel Conference in London are the MRAV 660, MRAV 1600 and MRAV 3600. Any type of hydrographic equipment can be integrated into these three vessels depending on customer requirements.