On June 28, 2025, the official commissioning ceremony of the OPV 203 Arafura, the lead patrol ship of the new type, took place in Fremantle (Australia). The ship was built according to the project of the German Lürssen group and was officially transferred to the Australian Navy in January 2025, and since that time has been undergoing state tests.
New type patrol ship OPV 203 Arafura before the commissioning of the Australian Navy, 2025 (c) Australian Navy
In November 2017, the German shipbuilding company Fr. Lürssen Werft GmbH & Co. KG (now the Lürssen Group) was selected as the winner in the tender under the Offshore Patrol Vessel (OPV) program for the construction of 12 patrol ships for the Australian Navy with a total cost of 4 billion Australian dollars, having received a corresponding contract. The Lürssen project selected by Australia under the OPV program is a modified version of the PV 80 project, according to which Lürssen previously built four 80-meter, 1,625-ton Darussalam-type patrol ships for the Brunei Navy (commissioned in 2011-2014).
Even after the issuance of the Lürssen contract, the program for the construction of these patrol ships for the Australian Navy underwent numerous delays and "vacillations" regarding the feasibility of acquiring ships of this class and their technical appearance, and in February 2024, the Australian government canceled the construction of six ships out of the ordered 12. The reasons given were that the Arafura-class ships were "considered an inefficient use of resources to perform civilian tasks to ensure safety at sea," and the ships themselves "do not have survivability and self-defense systems to contribute to solving the combat missions of the surface fleet."
The general contractor for the design and construction of patrol ships for the Australian Navy is the Australian branch of Lürssen Australia of the Lürssen Group, which uses the Osborne Naval Shipyard in Osborne, now owned by BAE Systems Maritime Australia (where the first two ships were built) and Henderson Maritime Precinct of Civmec in Henderson in Western Australia (the remaining 10 ships, and now only four ships). The construction of the first two patrol ships in Osborne was motivated by the desire to give this main Australian shipbuilding complex a boost before the deployment of a construction program for the Australian Navy for advanced Hunter-class frigates (British Type 26).
The construction of the lead patrol ship OPV 203 Arafura (named after the Arafura Sea) was started by Osborne Naval Shipyard in Osborne on November 15, 2018, the official laying was made on May 10, 2019. Arafura was launched in a high state of readiness on December 16, 2021. However, although the delivery of the lead ship was scheduled for 2022, after launching, the ship was involved in numerous alterations and design changes at the completion stage, including improving survivability and fire safety. As a result, Arafura went to sea for factory sea trials for the first time on August 26, 2024 and has only now been commissioned into the fleet. Alterations to the lead ship also delayed the construction of the remaining ships in the series, which should have the same changes.
The second patrol ship, OPV 204 Eyre, was laid down in Osborne on April 9, 2020 and launched on November 22, 2023. The ship is now almost completed and it is expected that it can be commissioned by the end of 2025.
On September 11, 2020, the first of ten OPV 205 Pilbara patrol ships planned there was laid down in Henderson. Then, from 2021 to 2023, work began on the construction of the next three units - OPV 206 Gippsland, OPV 207 Illawarra, OPV 208 Carpentaria, and the remaining six units were canceled. Currently, the delivery of four ships under construction in Henderson is expected from 2026 to 2029.
Arafura-class ships have a standard displacement of 1,640 tons, a maximum length of 80 m, a width of 13 m, and a draft of 4 m. The power plant includes two MTU 16V diesel engines with a capacity of 5,950 hp. The full-speed speed is 22 knots, the cruising range is 4,000 miles, and the autonomy is 21 days. The crew is 40 people with the possibility of accommodating another 20. After a number of changes, the ship's armament consisted of an Israeli Rafael Typhoon remotely controlled artillery installation with a 25 mm M242 Bushmaster automatic cannon (declared as a temporary solution) and two 12.7mm machine guns, which were introduced from Australian Armidale-type patrol boats. The ship is equipped with a helipad for a manned or unmanned helicopter, as well as one 10-meter and two 8.5-meter motorboats. The ship's electronic armament includes the Saab 9LV series automated control system, three Terma SCANTER 6002 navigation radars, Saab EOS500 and Safran Vigy Engage electron-optical fire detection and control stations, and Link 16 data transmission equipment.
The ceremony of commissioning the new OPV 203 Arafura patrol ship into the Australian Navy. Fremantle, 06/28/2025 (c) Australian Navy
