EML ''Sulev'' (M312) was a of the

Estonian Navy The Estonian Navy ( et, Merevägi) are the unified naval forces among the Estonian Defence Forces. With only six commissioned ships and displacement well under 10,000 tonnes, the Estonian navy is one of the smallest navies in the world. Its sh ...

Mineships Division.

Introduction

The minehunter ''Sulev'' was part of the Estonian Navy Mineships Division and also the second modernized ''Lindau''-class minehunter. A

cross-bow A crossbow is a ranged weapon using an elastic launching device consisting of a bow-like assembly called a ''prod'', mounted horizontally on a main frame called a ''tiller'', which is hand-held in a similar fashion to the stock of a long fire ...

is on the coat of arms of the vessel which was also a friend of

Kalevipoeg ''Kalevipoeg'' (, ''Kalev's Son'') is a 19th century Epic poetry, epic poem by Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald which has since been considered the Estonian national epic. Origins In pre-Christian ancient Estonia there existed an oral tradition ...

Sulev's son weapon. The ships motto is in

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

"''Certum Est''" which means in English "Secure it is". The coat of arms was designed by

Priit Herodes Priit Herodes (born 14 January 1948) is an Estonian heraldist. From 2000 to 2006, Herodes was the chairman of the Estonian Heritage Society and is currently a member of their board. He has designed numerous hues and flags, including the emblems ...

. In August 2001 on the 5th

Kuressaare Kuressaare () is a town on Saaremaa island in Estonia. It is the administrative centre of Saaremaa Parish and the capital of Saare County. Kuressaare is the westernmost town in Estonia. The recorded population on 1 January 2018 was 13,276. Th ...

naval day a cooperation contract was signed between the Kuressaare city council and the minehunter ''Sulev'' which gave the vessel a right to wear the Kuressaare town coat of arms and to introduce the city in all foreign harbors across the world.

History

''Sulev'' was built in the Burmester shipyard in Bremen,

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

. The vessel was launched on 16 February 1957 and she entered service a year later on 24 April 1958. She was to become the first German naval ship built since the end of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

in Germany. The ship's name comes from a city called

Lindau Lindau (german: Lindau (Bodensee), ''Lindau am Bodensee''; ; Low Alemannic: ''Lindou'') is a major town and island on the eastern side of Lake Constance (''Bodensee'' in German) in Bavaria, Germany. It is the capital of the county (''Landkreis' ...

in Germany and marks also the minehunter class name which has in total of 18 vessels. Originally ''Lindau'' was a minesweeper but was transformed into a minehunter in late 1970s. The

German Navy The German Navy (, ) is the navy of Germany and part of the unified ''Bundeswehr'' (Federal Defense), the German Armed Forces. The German Navy was originally known as the ''Bundesmarine'' (Federal Navy) from 1956 to 1995, when ''Deutsche Mari ...

decommissioned ''Lindau'' and one of her sister ships, ''Cuxhaven'', on 9 October 2003 and gave the vessels to the Estonian Navy to operate. On the ceremony the vessel received an Estonian name ''Sulev''.ENS Sulev (M312)
/ref> The Estonian Navy decommissioned ''Sulev'' on 26 March 2009.

References

External links

Estonian Navy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sulev (M312) Ships built in Bremen (state) 1957 ships Cold War minesweepers of Germany Lindau-class minesweepers of the Estonian Navy Estonian Mineships Division