The Royal Navy has taken delivery of a new experimental pilot ship that will allow sailors to experiment with advanced technology such as robotic submarines and remote-controlled boats.
The Dutch-built ship, christened the XV Patrick Blackett, arrived at Portsmouth Naval Base this week for delivery to NavyX, the service’s research and development division.
Tom Ryall, the Colonel of the Royal Marines in charge of NavyXsaid the new ship “will give us more flexibility to experiment with new military capabilities and accelerate new technology, equipment and concepts to the front lines.”
The 270-ton Patrick Blackett is a civilian design specially adapted so that prototypes of new equipment can be quickly installed on her spacious weather deck, where sailors can test them.
Electrical and water connection points on the deck allow pilots to quickly install and remove their specialized equipment without the vessel needing expensive yard adjustments each time a new item is installed.
Trials of new naval equipment in recent years have been based on taking a warship away from the front lines and modifying it as necessary, compromising the navy’s ability to patrol the world’s increasingly hostile oceans.
Navy sources expect the Patrick Blackett to be used to host trials of maritime drones as part of future naval exercises. Such drones can be controlled remotely from a ‘mothership’ and sail on the sea surface or even act as a submarine.
Such technologies reduce the risks mariners face and, admirals hope, means that one ship can control a much larger area than a conventional warship.
Recent naval experiments with unmanned, autonomous vessels include the use of drones to fly supplies to ships at sea, as well as trials of a remote-controlled speedboat made by BAE systems and deployed from frigate HMS Argyll.
The Navy’s new ship is named after a British physicist who served as the Navy’s first director of operations research during World War II. Patrick Blackett won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1948.
Unlike commissioned warships, the Patrick Blackett will fly the Blue Ensign – denoting a government civilian vessel – although she will be commanded by a naval officer and will have a naval crew of five on board. Her hull is also black instead of navy gray, with the new ship’s unique NATO pennant number: X01.