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Vl Turva

The Finnish Border Guard OPV Turva [Safety] [Vartiolaivat = watch ships / Guard Ship] carries one large fast patrol boat which is easily accommodated on davits leaving the aft deck clear. Rauma shipyard delivered in summer 2014 the new Finnish offshore patrol vessel Turva. The new vessel has extremely wide operational capability in all Finnish sea conditions. Propulsion arrangement of Turva (two azimuth thrusters and a centerline shaft) is found effective, robust and versatile for the Finnish Border Guard operational profile.

The DP2 class dynamic positioning will also improve receiving helicopters on the helipad, assisting in SAR- and emergency towing operations. It will also make oil recovery operations and rigging of the oil booms much easier.

Oil recovery equipments and recovery capacity in this vessel is over 1000 m³. The in hull integrated recovery system - FinnSweep® by Mobimar - is proven very effective. Special attention was given to fast and accurate deployment. The system is fully operational in 5 minutes after arriving to accident area. The design is totally new with 1.7 m wide brush skimmers on both sides of the vessel. Forced circulation is bringing oily water to the skimmer space where the effective transfer pumps are transferring the recovered oil further to the recovery tanks.

Additionally the vessel is equipped with 800 m of offshore oil boom. This boom is carried all the time onboard. The boom is manufactured by VikomaLtd. in UK. The manufacturing and delivery of this system gave us a very important opportunity to prove the end users (Finnish Coast Guard and Finnish Environment Institute) that FinnSweep® is working effectively and the system is easy to operate. This vessel has also a possibility to recover oil in heavier seastates by using a special channel. On starboard side of the vessel a higher side door allows oily water and waves enter into the vessel. In the channel the wave energy is dampened and the oily water is led to portside FinnSweep® -brush skimmer.

Turva replaced three smaller vessels: 1999-built Telkkä (sold to Norwegian interest), 2002-built Tavi (sold to UK Border Force and renamed HMC Protector) and 2004-built Tiira (sold together with Telkkä). The old vessels were not strengthened for navigation in ice and their oil spill prevention and response capability was not deemed adequate for dealing with the increased traffic in the Gulf of Finland. On 16 September 2013, STX Finland decided to close the shipyard in June 2014 and for a while it looked like Turva would be the last new vessel built in Rauma where ships have been constructed for over 300 years. However, a new shipbuilding company, Rauma Marine Constructions, took over the shipyard in the summer of 2014.