Six weeks after being raised, the wrecked frigate Helge Ingstad has been patched with steel plates and allowed to float on her own hull. Norwegian police reported that it has named three suspects over the collision of the Norwegian frigate ‘KNM Helge Ingstad’ with the the Maltese-flagged oil tanker ‘Sola TS’ off Bergen, in November 2018.
Commander Captain Håvard Mathisen, project manager for Forsvaret Defense Materials commented
This phase has focused on temporarily sealing the damage in the hull which is below the waterline by welding steel plates over the damaged areas. We have thus freed the chartered barge, and can avail ourselves of existing infrastructure at the Navy’s main base.
The frigate, after she was relaunched from the semisubmersible barge used to salvage her, she was towed to Haakonsvern, the Royal Norwegian Navy’s largest base.
Also, the majority of analysts expect that the damage from months under water will be too severe to allow repair to be an economical option.
In the meantime, the service intends to maintain the same operational presence by doubling the op-tempo of the frigate Otto Sverdrup.
Helge Ingstad’s crew will now return to [service] through a two-crew solution on the frigate KNM Otto Sverdrup. Thus, this frigate can sail continuously, and the Navy can thus maintain just as much sailing time as if KNM Helge Ingstad were in operation. The need for frigates has not diminished, but by using . . . two crews, we manage to deliver just as much in peacetime.
… commented Nils-Andreas Stensønes, the head of the Norwegian Navy.
Continuing, the Defense Committe of the Storting, Norway’s legislature, ordered an investigation into the salvage process that led up to the Ingstad’s raising.
We need to know if proper reviews were made in the recovery process, how things were organized and, not least, what it would cost in the end.
… stated Storting representative Martin Kolberg.
