NoCGV Svalbard

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Career

Laid down:	?
Launched:	February 17, 2001
Commissioned:	Mid-2002
Decommissioned:	still active
Fate:	still active
General characteristics
Displacement:	6500 tonnes
Length:	103.7 m (340.2 ft) overall 89 m (292 ft) waterline
Beam:	19.1 m (62.6 ft)
Height:	8.3 m (27.2 ft)
Draft:	6.5 m (21.3 ft)
Power:	4 x 3390 kW Rolls-Royce Bergen BRG-8 diesel generators
Propulsion:	2 x 5 MW Azipod electric motors
Speed:	17.5 kn
Range:	?
Complement:	?
Aircraft:	Capacity for two helicopters; one Lynx carried initially, NH90 from 2009
Radar:	EADS TRS-3D /16 ES with IFF
Gun:	Bofors 57 mm, 12.7 mm
Cost:	575 million NOK (80 million USD), radar and helicopter not included

The Norwegian Coast Guard icebreaker and offshore patrol vessel KV Svalbard (W303) was constructed by Langsten AS at Tangen Verft shipyard in Kragerø and launched on February 17, 2001. She was christened December 15 in Tomrefjord with Minister of Defence Kristin Krohn Devold as godmother, and delivered to the Coast Guard on January 18, 2002. She entered service in mid-2002 and is homeported in Sortland. Her primary operating area is in the Arctic waters north of Norway, the Barents Sea and around the Svalbard islands.

Svalbard is one of the largest ship in Norway's military armed forces, designed to supplement the 3 other helicopter carrying ships of the Norwegian Coast Guard - the Nordkapp class patrol vessels. She is NBC-protected with constant overpressure, and is capable of icebreaking or towing up to 100.000 tons.

On July 9, 2007 the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper had announced that Canada would be building six to eight corvettes modeled after the Svalbard's design.^[1]^[2]