The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has contracted Damen for nine SAR 1906 search and rescue boats for the Turkish Coast Guard Command. Financed by the European Union, these 19-metre boats will be in addition to the six vessels of the same class delivered to Turkish Coast Guard Command in 2017.
The first two of the new order will be delivered in the summer of 2020 with the remaining seven due to come into service over the following twelve months. The vessels will be built to the same specification as their predecessors with some additional fine tuning and will also be operated by the Turkish Coast Guard Command to support ongoing migrant rescue operations.
SAR 1906 Design
The SAR 1906 has been developed by Damen in close cooperation with the KNRM (Royal Netherlands Sea Rescue Institution), TU Delft and maritime design bureau De Vries Lentsch. It is a fast, harbour-based, all weather, self-righting rescue boat with an aluminium hull and a composite wheelhouse. With its hull design based on Damen’s Axe Bow technology with certain adaptations to optimise it for rescue operations, it can achieve a top speed of more than 33 knots and has a range of 300 nm at full load.
The design has been further improved in close cooperation with the Turkish Coast Guard Team and modified for their specific operations. Turkish design office DzaynGate, located in TeknoPark in Pendik-Istanbul, also worked on the adaptations of the design for the new series.
Damen Shipyards Antalya
The construction of the boats will take place at Damen’s Turkish yard, Damen Shipyards Antalya, located in the Antalya Free Zone. Since its establishment in 2013, the yard has delivered more than seventy vessels ranging from ten-metre fast boats to eighty-metre RoRo ferries to international customers. The yard currently has 360 local employees plus an average of 200 subcontractors working on-site at any time.
