RIBCRAFT Inks USN 11-Meter RIB Contract
RIBCRAFT announced that the United States Navy has awarded a five-year indefinite quantity contract to the company to provide the 11-Meter RIBs.
Under the contract, RIBCRAFT will build and deliver the 11-Meter Expeditionary Mine Counter Measure Boat. RIBCRAFT has also been providing the U.S. Navy with 7-Meter shipboard RIBs since 2014.
A critical component of the Expeditionary Mine Countermeasures Company, the 11-Meter RIBs will serve to support explosive ordinance disposal mine counter measure platoons in both shallow and deep water operations. To achieve this, RIBCRAFT will build two configurations for mine counter measure operations; one with an open aft deck for stowage and deployment of two combat rubber raiding craft and the other featuring a launch, recover, and handling system for deployment and retrieval of an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) which will have the capability to launch, recover and handle two UUVs using a single davit.
Each vessel, with an overall length of 39’, will be equipped with twin Cummins QSB-6.7 473 HP diesel engines, twin Hamilton Jet 292 water jets, and Shockwave shock mitigating seating for improved crew comfort in all conditions. A critical operational requirement for these boats is that they must be transportable around the world by land, air or sea and be able to be readily deployed from a variety of US Navy ship classes.