, On 5 September, representatives of the National Armed Forces (NAF) Naval Force (NF) will take possession of the ALKMAAR-Class minehunter vessel M05 Viesturs from the Dutch Navy in the Dutch city of Den Helder.
This is the second of the five minehunters Latvia has procured from the Netherlands. The State Secretary of the Ministry of Defence Edgars Rinkēvičs, the Latvian Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Netherlands Baiba Braže and the leadership of the Latvian and Dutch Navies will participate in the ceremony of taking possession of the ship.
The Agreement on procuring 5 ALKMAAR-Class warships from the Dutch Navy was signed between the Latvian and Dutch Ministries of Defence on 24 August 2005. The NAF NF took possession of the first minehunter – M04 Imanta – from the Netherlands on 7 March of this year. The price of one ship is 8 million lats.
The main task of the ALKMAAR-Class minehunters is to detect and destroy mines but they are also capable of performing other tasks – participate in the NATO Response Force, carry out search and rescue operations, as well as patrolling if necessary.
The M05 Viesturs minehunter was built in 1984, and its previous name was Scheveningen; its displacement is 595 tons, length: 51.6 metres, width: 8.96 metres, maximum speed: 15 knots. The M05 Viesturs vessel will join the Baltic Naval Squadron BALTRON in the next year.
The ship’s commander is Lieutenant Commander Jānis Vīksne, and it has a crew of 44 sailors. The ship’s godmother is the Naval Force Press and Information Officer Iveta Kraule.
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