HMS Gleaner has ended her career in the Royal Navy, HMS Magpie will now take her place.

The vessel replacing HMS Gleaner is a catamran based on the ‘Wildcat 60’ design (pictured above) with a beam of 6.2m and a draft of 1.4m. The vessel has a 33,000kg lightship displacement and a loaded displacement of 37,000kg.

Cork based shipyard Safehaven Marine are constructing the vessel, the largest of a fleet of up to 38 new workboats, ranging in size from 11 to 18 metres, being supplied to the UK Ministry of Defence by prime contractor AEUK.

These 18m catamarans have a loaded displacement around 37 tonnes with a capacity for up to twelve-crew to be berthed on-board, and an endurance of seven days. They are capable of deploying a range of sonar options and are all weather capable.

Safehave Marine say the design is suited to an ocean research and hydrographic survey catamaran capable of operating offshore for 7 days duration for 12 crew. To facilitate this the vessel has two sleeping cabins, one in the lower port hull and one in the st/bd hull, each fitted with 6x bunk berths and each cabin with its own separate heads compartment. A full galley is positioned in the f/wd port hull and is equipped for extended sea operations, fitted with a large capacity fridge freezer, dishwasher, 240v hob and microwave, large worktop areas and storage.

.@SafehavenMarine constructing a larger catamaran-hulled replacement for inshore survey craft HMS Gleaner due to decommission in December pic.twitter.com/hms9ahe7Za — NavyLookout (@NavyLookout) September 11, 2017

The vessel is fitted with twin Volvo D16 engines that provide the vessel with a 23kts maximum speed and an 19-20kts operational cruise speed.