March 06 - The Royal Swedish Navy's contribution to the EU anti piracy operation will be transported to Somalian waters on a heavy lift vessel.
The Swedish contribution to the HMS Atalanta operation consists of the corvettes HMS Stockholm and HMS Malmö and the support vessel HMS Trossö.
The ships are due to leave Sweden around Easter and operations off Somalia will start in mid-May.
The tender process is still continuing so the shipping line involved in the move is still to be selected. The Navy accepts that warships are of course capable of making the journey on their own but that would mean a need for an overhaul in the operational area.
Another advantage is that the crews can continue their compulsory mission training in Sweden while the ships are being transported.
Using a heavy lift vessel is common among navies which are to transport smaller warships. The Norweigan navy did the same in UNIFIL 2006 and the German navy transported their ships to the Gulf of Aden during operation Enduring Freedom.
"That means that our crews can concentrate directly on their mission," said Lt Jimmy Adamsson of the Swedish Navy's third naval warfare flotilla.
