On Friday, March 13, two Sakura-class patrol ships were launched at the Japan Marine United (JMU) shipyard in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture. According to Naval News, these are the third and fourth hulls in a series of 12 corvettes ordered for the Japanese Navy.
The third ship is named Hinoki in honor of the Japanese cypress, and the fourth – Sugi in honor of the Japanese cedar. Traditionally, large ships of the Japanese Navy were named after celestial and meteorological phenomena, mountains, rivers or regions. However, the names of the trees were chosen for the new class of Sakura patrol ships.
Patrol ship Hinoki, Japan
Naval News
The Sakura class is a new type for the Japanese navy, which has not previously used OPV-type patrol vessels in its fleet.
OPV-903 Hinoki and OPV-904 Sugi were laid down simultaneously with the lead ship OPV-901 Sakura and the second OPV-902 Tachibana on February 14, 2025. The first and second corvettes were launched on November 13 of the same year. According to the Japanese Navy headquarters, all four ships are scheduled to be commissioned in March 2027.
The Japanese military said that the construction of each of the ships, the Hinoki and Sugi, cost about 8.9 billion yen ($ 56 million). But the cost is growing, and the defense budget for fiscal year 2026 has already allocated 28.5 billion yen for the production of the fifth and sixth corvettes, which is equivalent to about 14.25 billion yen for each ship.
As part of the Japanese defense buildup program, adopted in December 2022, the Ministry of Defense plans to purchase 12 Sakura-class patrol ships within about ten years. The government initially allocated 35.7 billion yen in the fiscal year 2023 budget for the construction of the first four ships.
Sakura-class ships are optimized for routine patrol and reconnaissance missions in the waters surrounding Japan. Their length is 95 meters, their standard displacement is 1,900 tons, and their draft is 7.7 meters. The maximum speed is about 25 knots. Like the Mogami-class frigates, the corvettes are designed using stealth technology to reduce radar visibility.
Automation technologies are widely used in ship equipment to reduce the number of crew. Each ship will be operated by a crew of only 30 people, which is about a third of the crew size of the Mogami-class frigates.
Although the displacement of these ships is comparable to the Abukuma-class escort ships, their armament is minimal and consists mainly of 30 mm cannons; there are no anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles.
The ships have a modular architecture that allows them to be flexibly configured to perform various tasks, while increasing surveillance capabilities through automation, adaptability and environmental friendliness.
According to the Japanese White Paper on Defense, as of March 2026, the Japanese Navy has about 155 ships and auxiliary vessels. Among them are two light aircraft carriers, 36 destroyers, six frigates, six escort ships, 23 submarines, 19 minesweepers and three tank destroyers.
