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DCNS-Built OPV L’Adroit Confirms its Operational Capacities with the French Navy.

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Naval Industry News - France

DCNS-Built OPV L’Adroit Confirms its Operational Capacities with the French Navy

L’Adroit, an offshore patrol vessel (OPV), built by DCNS on its own funds and placed at the disposal of the French Navy since October 2011, returned at the start of July after 4 months of intense operations around the African continent. Its commander, frigate captain Luc Régnier, talks about the operational capacities and availability of the vessel, which demonstrated its reliability to carry out fisheries policing and maritime security missions. The partnership developed between DCNS and the French Navy can therefore be considered a veritable success.

L'Adroit OPV

What missions did you carry out during this deployment? “The four months of mission for the OPV L’Adroit were extensive and intense. After a patrol in the Mediterranean in March, the vessel was sailed to the Red Sea at the start of April to participate in the Atalante European anti-piracy mission around the Horn of Africa. But the conflict in Yemen between the Houthi rebels and the Yemenite president’s forces changed this programme. Over a period of two weeks, together with the frigate Aconit, L’Adroit played a major role in the evacuation of some one hundred French citizens from Aden, then escorted Djibouti boutres between the Yemenite ports of Al-Moka and Djibouti for the evacuation of several hundred Djiboutian citizens and foreign refugees. L’Adroit then returned to participate in the Atalante operation along the Somalian coast up until the end of May, after which the mission continued in the French exclusive economic zone of the Mozambique canal to ensure fisheries monitoring and maritime security. Last but not least, after a stopover in Cape Town, the patrol vessel sailed to the West African coast and participated in several weeks of intense exchanges with the navies of the Gulf of Guinea region, in support of the Corymbe support operation.” What are the strong points of L’Adroit? “During these missions, the offshore patrol vessel demonstrated exceptional endurance and availability. The vessel’s low fuel consumption allows the spacing out of re-supply stopovers and L’Adroit is simple to operate and maintain… It is a great success! Furthermore, the integrated innovations make it a vessel that is entirely suited to its monitoring and rapid intervention missions. Most of our work is done visually. The high bridge with panoramic visibility therefore represents an advantage and increases operations safety as the helicopter and boats are clearly visible. In addition, L’Adroit is equipped with modern systems for communications, radar surveillance and electronic warfare, integrated into the Polaris® mission management system. This software system merges gathered information to support navigation and allows sharing with other vessels. It was presented to the navies of the Gulf of Guinea region within the frame of our cooperation, which includes in particular the exchange of information at sea with the land-based regional control centres. The Camcopter® S-100 airborne drone that equips L’Adroit is also connected to the Polaris® system. It was not possible to use this drone during the recent operations of L’Adroit but over the last two years of testing, it represented a clear advantage. With a flight autonomy of five hours, it can send real-time images whilst remaining discrete, with a low fuel consumption and without exposing personnel to risks. Last but not least, L’Adroit has very high-performance rapid boats and a launch ramp on the rear platform allowing a discrete launch in thirty seconds. This acceleration of operations speed was greatly appreciated in Aden, in particular.”

L'Adroit OPV seen from an S-100 Camcopter. Picutre: French Navy

Has the partnership developed between the French Navy and DCNS since 2011 worked well? “Yes, as it allowed the French Navy to test an innovative and reliable patrol vessel whilst at the same time giving DCNS and its industrial partners a floating shopwindow. On the one hand, the French Navy was able to better define its needs in view of the renewal of its patrol vessel fleet in the frame of the future BATSIMAR (maritime surveillance and intervention vessels) programme. On the other hand, L’Adroit represented an effective promotional tool for DCNS and its partners. Each year, the French Navy and DCNS jointly defined export-support missions performed by L’Adroit to promote this vessel with foreign navies during stopovers and missions at sea. Since the launch of this OPV, built using its own funds, DCNS created – in 2013 – together with the Piriou naval shipyard, which also participated in the construction of L’Adroit, a joint company, Kership, which markets offshore patrol vessels and specialist ships: L’Adroit, whose generic name is OPV 90, served as an experimental tool to prepare a range of armed vessels of 40 to 95 metres intended for State maritime intervention missions. Further to the feedback received from the French Navy, certain types of equipment, such as the single integrated mast and the rear launch system, were introduced on smaller OPVs and other DCNS vessels. With this range of vessels, DCNS is solicited to respond to calls for tender in several countries that used L’Adroit as inspiration for drafting their specifications. The commercial future of this OPV and its derived vessels is therefore very promising!”