The T Craft-class patrol vessels are a class of inshore

patrol boat A patrol boat (also referred to as a patrol craft, patrol ship, or patrol vessel) is a relatively small naval ship, naval vessel generally designed for Coastal defence and fortification, coastal defence, Border control, border security, or law ...

currently in service with the

South African Navy The South African Navy (SA Navy) is the naval warfare branch of the South African National Defence Force. The Navy is primarily engaged in maintaining a conventional military deterrent, participating in counter-piracy operations, fishery prote ...

. Comprising three vessels, the class was constructed in South Africa and entered service in 1992. Known just as T craft or by their

pennant number In the Royal Navy and other navies of Europe and the Commonwealth of Nations, ships are identified by pennant number (an internationalisation of ''pendant number'', which it was called before 1948). Historically, naval ships flew a flag that iden ...

s until 2003 when the vessels received new names.

Design

These boats are twin-hulled

catamaran A catamaran () (informally, a "cat") is a watercraft with two parallel hull (watercraft), hulls of equal size. The wide distance between a catamaran's hulls imparts stability through resistance to rolling and overturning; no ballast is requi ...

s of glass-reinforced plastic (GRP) sandwich construction, with a complement of 16 personnel including one officer. The displace fully loaded and are

long overall Length overall (LOA, o/a, o.a. or oa) is the maximum length of a vessel's hull measured parallel to the waterline. This length is important while docking the ship. It is the most commonly used way of expressing the size of a ship, and is also u ...

with a

beam Beam may refer to: Streams of particles or energy *Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy **Laser beam *Radio beam *Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles **Charged particle beam, a spatially lo ...

of and a draught of . The boats are propelled by two

Hamilton Hamilton may refer to: * Alexander Hamilton (1755/1757–1804), first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States * ''Hamilton'' (musical), a 2015 Broadway musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda ** ''Hamilton'' (al ...

water-jets powered by two ADE 444 Tl 12V

diesel engine The diesel engine, named after the German engineer Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which Combustion, ignition of diesel fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to Mechanics, mechanical Compr ...

s creating . This gives the vessels a maximum speed of and a range of at . Each vessel possesses a Racal-Decca I-band surface search radar unit and a single heavy

Browning machine gun Browning machine guns are a family of machine gun designs by John Browning, a prolific weapon designer. These include: *M1895 Colt–Browning machine gun, based on a design dating to 1889, was the first successful gas-operated machine gun to ente ...

. Each boat is designed to carry a small seaborne complement of commandos as well as a

rigid-hulled inflatable boat A rigid inflatable boat (RIB), also rigid-hull inflatable boat or rigid-hulled inflatable boat (RHIB), is a lightweight but high-performance and high-capacity boat constructed with a rigid hull (watercraft), hull bottom joined to side-forming a ...

in the stern well in order to board other vessels at sea.

History

Three vessels were ordered in mid-1991, and were built by T Craft International in

Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...

. The first vessel was commissioned into the

as ''P1552'' in June 1992. The second vessel was commissioned as ''P1553'' in June 1996 and the third as ''P1554'' in December 1996. Three vessels of this type were also built for Israel in 1997. In 2003, the three vessels were given new names, keeping their old names as

s. ''P1152'' became SAS ''Tobie'' (P1552), ''P1553'' became SAS ''Tern'' (P1553) and ''P1554'' became SAS ''Tekwane'' (P1554).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:T Craft Class Inshore Patrol Vessel Ships of the South African Navy Patrol boat classes