The Peruvian Navy officially marked the beginning of construction works on its second Makassar-class landing platform dock (LPD) ‘Paita’ with a keel-laying ceremony on December 14.
The ceremony took place at the SIMA shipyard in Calao and was led by Peruvian defense minister Jorge Nieto Montesinos.
The future B.A.P. Paita is the second of overall two Makassar-class landing platform dock ships planned to be constructed for the Peruvian Navy.
The lead ship in the class, B.A.P. Pisco was launched in April 2017 and is expected to be commissioned in 2019.
The two ships in the class were designed by South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) in collaboration with the Peruvian state-owned shipyard SIMA. DSME also provided the base design for the Indonesian Navy’s three Makassar-class ships. Indonesian shipbuilder PT PAL subsequently built two vessels for the Philippine Navy which refers to them as Tarlac-class.
B.A.P. Carrasco embarks on maiden mission
In addition to the keel laying ceremony, Peruvian state and navy officials also attended the send off of the recently-commissioned Polar oceanographic research vessel B.A.P. Carrasco on its maiden deployment to the Antarctic.
B.A.P. Carrasco got underway from the Port of Callao on December 14 with a crew of 57. The ship is now en route the Peruvian Antarctic scientific station “Machu Picchu” where it is scheduled to stay until March, 2018.