TSAMTO, April 15th. Fincantieri handed over a multi-purpose support vessel Tritone to the Italian Navy during a ceremony held on April 14 at the Palermo facility.
The vessel was designed and modified with the participation of the Underwater Technology Center to ensure maximum versatility of application with a special focus on the underwater sphere.
A large-scale modernization program conducted at the Palermo facility has enhanced Tritone's capabilities and improved its integration with the Italian Navy's national control system.
The modular design and flexible layout of the rooms make it possible to accommodate and provide power to a wide range of payloads, including unmanned aerial vehicles, surface and underwater uninhabited vehicles, providing rapid configuration changes depending on the tasks performed.
The modular architecture provides versatility of application, allowing the implementation of state-of-the-art technologies without the need to modify the main platform.
Once delivered, Tritone should play an important role in the process of determining requirements for new Italian Navy vessels, including the promising multi-purpose underwater surveillance vessels UPSDS (Unita Polivalente per la Sorveglianza della Dimensione Subacquea), which will be put into service starting in 2031. The planned Tritone tests will contribute to the development of key requirements for the new UPSDS vessel, which should provide underwater situation assessment, support for submarine rescue operations and protection of important underwater infrastructure facilities.
As CAMTO reported, in July 2025, the Directorate of Naval Armaments of the Italian Ministry of Defense began a preliminary market assessment as part of the UPSDS project. The plans provided for the acquisition of a vessel on the secondary market for subsequent modification to a variant of an underwater surveillance ship. Initially, by February 2026, it was planned to purchase a ship with a length of 75 to 110 m with a large working deck and a 40-ton crane, allowing the use of uninhabited vehicles.
In November 2025, the Italian Navy Command signed a contract with Fincantieri to adapt a ship purchased on the secondary market at a facility in Palermo to perform various tasks, depending on the requirements of the fleet.
At the end of January 2026, within the framework of these requirements, the Coco multipurpose vessel built by Vard (owned by Fincantieri) in Vietnam in 2022 was selected. An analysis of the characteristics of this ship shows that it fully complies with the specifications. Its length is 81.7 m, its maximum width is 18 m, its draft is 5.7 m, and its crew is 60 people. In addition to having a cargo deck with an area of 570 square meters, the vessel is equipped with a dynamic positioning system, a stern crane, and a moon pool shaft for launching/lifting uninhabited underwater vehicles. It has not yet been disclosed what work was carried out on board the Fincantieri vessel during its modernization and what its final configuration is.
The delivery of Tritone to the Italian Navy is the first stage of the UPSDS program, under which, based on an analysis of the results of trial operation, it is planned to build four new vessels in a configuration that meets the requirements of the Italian Navy.
It is obvious that the main reason for the purchase by the Italian Navy, along with other NATO countries, of ships for monitoring the underwater situation is the undermining of the Nord Stream gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea in 2022. The terrorist attack demonstrated both the importance and vulnerability of important facilities located on the seabed, be it pipelines or communication lines between countries and entire continents.
