KYIV. Oct 21 (Interfax) - The United States' general cargo ship Ocean Freedom, carrying two former U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) Island-class patrol boats for the Ukrainian Navy, has arrived at the port of Odesa.
"The Island-class boats R190 Sloviansk and R191 Starobelsk arrived in Odesa aboard the Ocean Freedom vessel today, October 21. The boats refitted for the Ukrainian Navy have arrived at the Odesa commercial sea port after a number of successful tests and sailing thousands of miles," the Ukrainian Navy's Central Command said on Facebook on Monday.
The boats are now being offloaded and prepared for use after the long transportation, the press center said.
"After unloading, the boats will be towed to a navy harbor. Once preparations, now by their Ukrainian crew, are completed, the Island-class boats will embark on the mission of providing maritime safety in the Black and Azov seas," it said.
The USCGC Cushing (WPB-1321) and USCGC Drummond (WPB-1323) boats were handed over at a ceremony at the naval base in Baltimore (Maryland) on September 27, 2018, in the presence of then-Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko and USCG Commander Vice Admiral Michael McAllister. A relevant memorandum was signed by McAllister and Ukrainian Navy Commander Admiral Ihor Voronchenko.
The boats were mothballed after being decommissioned from the USCG in 2017. The Cushing was last repaired in a dockyard in 2014, and the Drummond in 2012. The latter was also upgraded under a program which involved a number of renewals and replacements of key nodes and systems in addition to the standard amount of repairs (dockyard repair, maintenance of devices, mechanisms, and systems).
After their handover to Ukraine the boats were got new names and registration numbers: Sloviansk (R191) and Starobelsk (R190).
Ukrainian crews trained initially in Ukraine and then 32 sailors continued a ten-week course at the MITAGS maritime training and research center in Linthicum in the U.S. The training was completed on September 15.
A typical Island-class boat has a displacement of 168 tonnes, a length of 34 meters, width of 6.4 meters, maximum speed of 29.5 knots, and a 16-member crew (under U.S. standards), including two officers. The boat is armed with a 25mm cannon and two machineguns, the AN/SPS-73 surface search radar, and a 5.4m Zodiac Hurricane 540 rigid hull inflatable boat.
The boats, including the upgrades and Ukrainian crew training, cost in total around $10 million, the USCG stated.