TSAMTO, May 21. Austal Australia, as part of a contract with the military department, has handed over to the Australian Ministry of Defense a Guardian-class patrol boat intended for delivery to the Government of the Solomon Islands. The boat was named "Taro".
The handover ceremony was held at the Austal Australia facility in Henderson. Taro was the tenth Guardian-class boat to be built under the PPBR (Pacific Patrol Boats Replacement) program.
Taro is the second of four Guardian-class patrol boats to be delivered to the Government of the Solomon Islands as part of the Australian Government's PPBR Pacific Island patrol boat replacement project. The first boat, the Gizo, was handed over to the Government of the Solomon Islands in November 2019. The boats will be used by the Solomon Islands police to patrol the borders, provide security, conduct search and rescue operations, etc.
As reported by TSAMTO, in May 2016, the Australian government signed a basic contract with Austal for the supply of 19 steel-hulled patrol boats under the Pacific Maritime Security Program (PMSP). The cost of the agreement was 305 million Austr. dollars. The cost of construction of the boats themselves is estimated at 280 million Austr. dollars, the initial seven-year service - at 24 million Austr. dollars. The agreement included an option to supply two additional ships.
In April 2018, the Australian Ministry of Defence announced that it would supply two additional Guardian-class boats to the East Timor Defence Force. The cost of the new contract was 29.7 million Austr. dollars. Thus, the total number of ships to be built by Austal has increased to 21 units, and the cost of the project-to 335 million austr. dollars.
The lead boat of the series, the 401 Ted Diro, was transferred to Papua New Guinea in November 2018. The following Austal-built boats were transferred to Tuvalu, the Kingdom of Tonga, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, and Fiji.
The supply of boats is planned to be carried out at intervals of 2-3 months. In total, the boats will be handed over to the Governments of 12 States, including Papua New Guinea, Fiji, the Federated States of Micronesia, Tonga, the Solomon Islands, the Cook Islands, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Palau, Samoa, East Timor and Vanuatu.
According to the schedule, the program will end with the delivery of ships to East Timor in the second half of 2023. Maintenance of the ships will be arranged at the Austal Australia repair facility in Cairns. Austal is considering additional opportunities to supply boats for export.
The new 39.5-meter boats will replace the "Pacific Patrol Ships" previously delivered to the island states of the Pacific region, whose service life is nearing completion. They will allow these countries to independently control their exclusive economic zone, ensure security in the region and protect marine resources.
