RSIPV ''Gizo'' (05) is a in service with the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force Maritime Department. She was the fifth boat of her class to be completed.

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

n officials officially handed her over to representatives of the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capita ...

on 8 November 2019, at the Austal shipyard in

Henderson, Western Australia Henderson is a suburb of Perth, Western Australia, located within the City of Cockburn. History The suburb of Henderson comprises land resumed by the Commonwealth Government in 1915 for defence purposes. A large naval base was planned by Admira ...

. She is the first of two Guardian-class vessels that Australia provided to the Solomon Islands, and replaced . Her

sister ship A sister ship is a ship of the same class or of virtually identical design to another ship. Such vessels share a nearly identical hull and superstructure layout, similar size, and roughly comparable features and equipment. They often share a ...

is .

Background

Following the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the

Pacific Islands Collectively called the Pacific Islands, the islands in the Pacific Ocean are further categorized into three major island groups: Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Depending on the context, the term ''Pacific Islands'' may refer to one of se ...

nations found themselves in need of capable yet economical vessels to patrol their exclusive economic zones. In an effort to improve regional maritime security as well as diplomatic relations with the island states, the

Australian government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Government i ...

launched the Pacific Patrol Boat Program in 1983, in which they would build and gift 22 patrol boats to 12 Pacific Island nations over the next 14 years. The patrol boats were built with

commercial off-the-shelf Commercial off-the-shelf or commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) products are packaged or canned (ready-made) hardware or software, which are adapted aftermarket to the needs of the purchasing organization, rather than the commissioning of ...

-components in order to ease maintenance costs for the island nations. Australia remained involved with maintaining the class for the next three decades, with a refit after 15 years of operation. The Royal Solomon Islands Police Force received in 1988 and her

in 1991, and would operate both for the next three decades. During a period of ethnic violence, ''Lata'' was reportedly commandeered by rebels in June 2000, and used to bombard the capital

Honiara Honiara () is the capital and largest city of Solomon Islands, situated on the northwestern coast of Guadalcanal. , it had a population of 92,344 people. The city is served by Honiara International Airport and the seaport of Point Cruz, and lie ...

. ''Lata'' was decommissioned in Honiara on 11 September 2019, before RSIPV ''Gizo'' was delivered in December. The Australian government announced the Pacific Patrol Boat Replacement Project on 17 June 2014. A contract for the construction of at least 19 boats and an initial seven-year maintenance and support period was signed with Austal on 4 May 2016. The

keel The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element on a vessel. On some sailboats, it may have a hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose, as well. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in the construction of a ship, in Br ...

of the first vessel was laid on 30 July 2017, before she was launched on 30 May 2018.

Design

Aerial view of the HMPNGS Rochus Lokinap P402, moored in Manus, PNG (cropped)

The Guardian class uses a steel

monohull image:monohull.svg, right A monohull is a type of boat having only one hull (watercraft), hull, unlike multihulled boats which can have two or more individual hulls connected to one another. Fundamental concept Among the earliest hulls were simple ...

design based on that of the , which had been in service with the Australian Border Force since 1999. The patrol boats are long with two habitable internal decks below the

bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...

. They are capable of traveling at , and have a maximum speed of . They have two Caterpillar 3516C

diesel engine The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-call ...

s powering two fixed-pitch propellers. A key design goal being ease of maintenance to accommodate small and isolated shipyards, the class uses

components. They are slightly larger and more capable than the Pacific class. In addition to the

commanding officer The commanding officer (CO) or sometimes, if the incumbent is a general officer, commanding general (CG), is the officer in command of a military unit. The commanding officer has ultimate authority over the unit, and is usually given wide latitu ...

's quarters, the boats have seven living quarters designed to berth 20 crew members. Three of them are staterooms that have their own showers in order to accommodate a

mixed-sex Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to t ...

crew. They also have a

sick bay A sick bay is a compartment in a ship, or a section of another organisation, such as a school or college, used for medical purposes. The sick bay contains the ship's medicine chest, which may be divided into separate cabinets, such as a refrigerat ...

with a separate ventilation system, which during normal operations is used as two berths, bringing the total complement up to 23. The vessels have a stern launching ramp for a WRH635 fast rescue boat. These are SOLAS-certified rigid-hulled inflatable boats designed to carry up to 15 persons. They are long, with two Yamaha

outboard motors An outboard motor is a propulsion system for boats, consisting of a self-contained unit that includes engine, gearbox and propeller or jet drive, designed to be affixed to the outside of the transom. They are the most common motorised method ...

and an operational weight of . The stern is also equipped with a port side crane serving a cargo deck. Australia instructed that the boats would be delivered without armament, but they were designed to be capable of mounting an

autocannon An autocannon, automatic cannon or machine cannon is a fully automatic gun that is capable of rapid-firing large-caliber ( or more) armour-piercing, explosive or incendiary shells, as opposed to the smaller-caliber kinetic projectiles (bull ...

of up to on their foredeck, and a 0.50-calibre machine gun both port and starboard in front of the bridge. In June 2022, three design flaws were reported in the media. This included cracking in the coupling between the engine and the gear box, the sick bay ventilation system recirculating air and an exhaust leak causing

carbon monoxide Carbon monoxide (chemical formula CO) is a colorless, poisonous, odorless, tasteless, flammable gas that is slightly less dense than air. Carbon monoxide consists of one carbon atom and one oxygen atom connected by a triple bond. It is the simple ...

to enter the normally non-crewed engine compartment.

Role

According to

Mostyn Mangau Mostyn Mangau is a senior police officer in the Solomon Islands. In 2014 Mangau was honoured with a British Empire Medal. Four other officers received similar honours. In February 2018, Mangau announced an initiative to destroy rogue crocodil ...

Solomon Islands Deputy Commissioner of Police: "This new boat is purposely to conduct maritime surveillance and enforcement operations like fighting

illegal fishing Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) is an issue around the world. Fishing industry observers believe IUU occurs in most fisheries, and accounts for up to 30% of total catches in some important fisheries. Illegal fishing takes pl ...

, search and rescue for distress boats, VIP escorts and other border operations."

Operational career

''Gizo'' was officially commissioned on 19 December 2019. VIPs attending the commissioning included

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

Manasseh Sogavare, Minister of Police, National Security and Correctional Services

Anthony Veke Anthony Veke (born c. 1977) is the premier of Guadalcanal Province of the Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and nor ...

and Australian High Commissioner Sally Anne Vincent. Acting Police Commissioner Mostyn Mangau called ''Gizo'' "the pride of the fleet". ''Gizo'' was joined by on her maiden voyage. The crews of the two vessels conducted joint training exercises on the voyage.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gizo Guardian class patrol vessels Naval ships of the Solomon Islands 2019 ships