New high speed fireboat for Singapore

Penguin Shipyard is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Penguin International Limited, a successful Singapore-based integrated marine and offshore service provider. BMT has partnered with Penguin Shipyard to offer its specialised design capability work to support growth in their high-speed offshore and commercial aluminium vessels’ market.

The multidisciplinary consultancy has worked closely with Penguin throughout the tender process to develop a cost-effective design that met Singapore Civil Defence Forces’ complete operational requirements. The result is a high-speed craft offering an advanced external fire fighting capability above, and beyond standard FiFi (Fire Fighting) I class requirements. The multirole vessel is fit for deployment in Chemical / Biological / Radiological (CBR) contaminated areas and serves to protect citizens in rescue missions and rapid response aid operations.

BMT’s Principal Naval Architect Sylvain Julien commented:

“We’ve worked with Penguin Shipyard previously on a number of vessel designs including high speed crew boats and passenger ferries. This new design, for a governmental organisation, is clear demonstration of our joint ability to deliver on complex and challenging vessel design requirements.”

The firefighting capability is designed to be fully redundant with three monitors and three pumps interconnected with a total discharge flow rate of 3600 m3/h. The vessel is equipped with mission-enabling features such as self-spray protection, a foam system, and the ability to be used as a pump station to support larger-scale landside operations.

Another safety-critical feature is the vessel’s superstructure that has been designed as an airtight citadel to protect those within from the potential dangers of CBR agents being released in the atmosphere. The CBR system is provided with 100% redundancy on filtration and air-conditioning equipment. Along with the in-built and fully integrated CBR system, the vessel is fitted with a decontamination room and two airlocks to access the citadel. The vessel’s survivability design is built to protect the professional crew and rescue passengers against any such CBR-contamination effects.

Other features include a high-speed RHIB with man-riding launching and recovery, a large firefighting equipment storage capacity, and a first aid room. The design can accommodate eight firefighters and the crew and includes a rescue passenger lounge for 30 people.

The vessel is powered by a three-engine (MTU 16V4000), three-waterjet (Hamilton H721) configuration providing high operational flexibility and optimum speed beyond 30 knots.