KNM Maud on its way to resume NATO mission

Royal Norwegian Navy’s logistics and support vessel KNM Maud has set sail from the port of Portsmouth to reunite with the maritime NATO group.

On 1 November 2021, the Armed Forces informed that the vessel had experienced instability with the ship technical system IPMS, a system that facilitates automation, control and monitoring of the vessel’s equipment.

“The outage was necessary for reasons of safe operation – we will always take care of that. The crew, Defense Materiel and the British supplier of IPMS have worked intensively for a couple of weeks, and we now have a sufficient basis for the safe operation of the vessel and will therefore resume operations”, said chief of the Navy, flag commander Trond Gimmingsrud.

“There are still improvements to the system that Forsvarsmateriell will follow up, but as we consider it now, that work can be carried out at a later date”, he added.

After undergoing thorough technical improvements and tests, KNM Maud is resuming its mission in Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 (SNMG1).

Named after Queen Maud of Norway, the ship is said to be the largest vessel ever operated by the Royal Norwegian Navy. It replaced HNoMS Valkyrien which served as the navy logistics vessel until 2016.

Based on BMT’s scalable AEGIR platform design, which it shares with the larger Royal Navy Tide-class tankers, the 26,000-tonne logistics and support vessel is fully winterized, has a helicopter flight deck and hangar, and a 48-bed hospital capability.