Indian Navy to Get Large Survey Vessel

In early December, the first ship of the Survey Vessel Large project (SVL), “Sandhayak” will be launched.

Talking about the launch of “Sandhayak’’ Vice Chief of Naval Staff VAdm SN Ghormade, said, “The contract for building four SVL ships was inked between Ministry of Defence and Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers (GRSE), Kolkata on October 30, 2018.”

“Sandhayak’ is the first of the four Survey Vessels (Large) (SVL) Project being built by the shipyard for the Indian Navy.”

These large Survey ships are expected to replace the existing Sandhayak Class survey ships.

The new ships are going to have new generation hydrographic equipment which includes advanced indigenous data acquisition systems which will collect and analyze geophysical and oceanographic data in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). Also the new large survey vessel will have 11m survey boats, ROVs and AUVs.

Despite challenges due to global pandemic of COVID-19, according to the Vice Chief, “Substantial progress has been made by GRSE and its partner shipyard, L&T Shipbuilding. And the delivery is likely by October 2022”.

Background

Earlier this year in June, indigenously designed and built in India, Hydrographic survey ship INS Sandhayak, was decommissioned after 40 years of service.

According to an official statement by the Ministry of Defence in the summer, the Hydrographic survey ship was conceptualised by the then Chief Hydrographer to the Government of India, Rear Adm FL Fraser. He was keen on indigenously designed and built hydrographic survey vessels in India.

The keel was laid in 1978 for the survey ship, the design for which was finalized by Naval Headquarters and the construction started at GRSE Kolkata (then Calcutta). The commissioning into the Navy was in February 1981 by Vice Adm MK. Roy, who was the FOC-in-C, ENC.

Before decommissioning earlier this year, the ship had undertaken more than 200 major hydrographic surveys and several minor surveys in east and west coasts of the country. And also, the Andaman seas and neighbouring countries.

It had participated in several major operations including Op Pawan when it assisted the Indian Peacekeeping Force in 1987, Op Sarong, Op Rainbow and participation in the maiden joint Indo-US HADR Exercise ‘Tiger-Triumph’.