The Estonian Ministry of Defense awarded Thales as prime contractor to upgrade the country’s three Sandown-Class Single Role Minehunters, the company said Feb. 22.
As prime contractor, Thales is responsible for revised vessel design, equipment/system specification and procurement, platform and system integration, shipyard management and all test, trial and acceptance events. The company will also supply the minehunters’ mission package, which includes new navigation systems, Sonar 2193 wideband hull mounted sonar, the M-CUBE command and control system (C2), and a fleet mine warfare data center.
Sandown-Class minehunters are primarily built for the U.K. Royal Navy but also serve in the Royal Saudi navy in addition to the Estonian Navy. They are 52.5 meters long and have a range of 2,500 nautical miles.
“I am very pleased that Thales has been selected by the Estonian MoD for this prestigious and important program. This is a challenging but exciting project, and these three ships will be upgraded with state of the art minehunting technology that will enable the Estonian Navy to continue to play an important role in NATO mine counter measures group 1 operations,” Phil Jones, managing director of maritime mission systems for Thales in the U.K., said in a statement.
Thales highlighted the upgrade builds on company expertise in naval architecture and engineering established in the earlier Queen Elizabeth-Class Aircraft Carrier and the Lithuanian Hunt Regeneration contract.
Upgrade work on the current and recent naval contracts is centered at Thales’ facilities in Cheadle and Templecombe and supported by Babcock Marine Systems in Rosyth, all in the United Kingdom. The upgraded minehunters are set to be delivered with full operational capability in 2019.
The Estonian Navy prioritizes a mine countermeasures capability, one of its peacetime responsibilities. “During World War I and II more than 80 000 sea mines were laid in the Baltic Sea,” the Navy says on its website.