Finnish Border Guard Gets LNG-powered OPV

On Friday May 9, 2014, STX Finland Oy’s Rauma Shipyard handed over a next-generation offshore patrol vessel to the Finnish Border Guard. The vessel was christened Turva by her godmother, Minister of the Interior Päivi Räsänen, in the christening and float-out ceremony held on August 2, 2013.

The technically advanced and highly versatile 96 meters long and 17 meters wide offshore patrol vessel will be used for frontier supervision, maritime search and rescue (SAR), environmental protection and monitoring of natural resources, oil spill response on the open sea, and cooperation with other authorities. The vessel will be used under any weather and visibility conditions on the Baltic Sea and it is capable of independent long-term operation. The ship hull and its systems have been designed with seaworthiness and operational reliability in mind to ensure operation under extreme conditions. Special attention has been paid to environmentally friendly and energy-efficient solutions. The ship uses liquefied natural gas (LNG) with low emission levels and diesel oil as fuels, which keeps the ship’s own emissions small.

“We are very satisfied as we are handing over this extremely modern and efficient vessel to the Finnish Border Guard. With its versatile purposes of use, this ship is an excellent reference for Finnish shipbuilding competence,” said Jari Anttila, Deputy CEO of STX Finland Oy.

“My deepest gratitude to the Rauma Shipyard for its excellent professional skills used to build the next-generation offshore patrol vessel for the Border Guard, and congratulations to STX Finland for implementation of this particularly demanding vessel design. The versatile capacities of this vessel will be hard to match,” said Captain (Navy) Jukka Jaakkola, Chief of Technical Department of the Finnish Border Guard Headquarters