Offshore Patrol Vessel ‘Furor’ (P-46)

The commanding officer and crew of the offshore patrol vessel ‘Furor’ (P-46) welcome you to the website of the ship. The ‘Furor’ is the sixth ‘Meteoro’-class OPV built by Navantia in Ferrol (NW Spain). The P-46 was launched on September 8th 2017 and delivered to the Spanish Navy on January 21st 2019. She is ordinarily stationed in the Cartagena Naval Base.

Her modern design includes state-of-the-art technologies resulting in a high level of automation, improving the quality of life onboard, and the operation of the ship with a small crew.

Displacement: 2.840 T.

Length: 93,90 m.

Width: 14,2 m.

Speed: 22 knots.

Power: 2 Diesel 12,000 HP (10 mw); 2 engines 2,000 HP..

Propulsion: Combined diesel/electric (CODOE); 2 propellers.

Sensors:

Weapons:

Miscellaneous: Flight deck for NH-90, SH-60 or AB-212..

Crew: 51 people.

The ‘Furor’ is the sixth ‘Meteoro’-class offshore patrol vessel and the second unit of the second batch of Navantia’s OPVs (BAM in its Spanish initials). The ship will be stationed in Cartagena. These offshore patrol vessels are modern warships with stat-of-the-art technology and a high level of automatism resulting in efficient and smaller crews.

The ‘Furor’ was launched in September 2017 and delivered to the Spanish Navy on January 21st 2019.

This is the third ship with that name. The first one was a destroyer built in Glasgow in 1896. The warship was an excellent escort capable of reaching a speed of 28 knots, but she was short lived as was lost two years later in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba.

The second ‘Furor’ was also a destroyer built in Spain and commissioned in 1960. The ship was in service until 1973.

The crew consists of 52 people, all of them highly specialized and prepared to man a ship of these characteristics and technical complexity. They manage to achieve the highest degree of readiness thanks to intense training and preparation periods.

The ship’s characteristics allow her to operate in a large number of scenarios, not only in conventional maritime surveillance operations, but also in humanitarian missions, peacekeeping, anti-drug, illegal trafficking, etc.

OPV ‘Furor’ is a modern ship which, like her sister ships, has been built with all necessary elements to operate as a Command and Control vessel, capable of providing coverage to expeditionary forces, operating in coastal areas and blue waters in a flexible and sustainable way, maintaining at all times the maximum operational capability required by the Navy.

The ‘Furor’ was designed to conduct all sorts of military missions in conventional and asymmetric threats and operate within a wide range of missions like deterrence, surveillance, neutralization, etc.

In addition, she can carry out missions to protect national maritime interests and control maritime areas of sovereignty and national interest, contributing to all the activities organized by the different public administrations with responsibilities in the maritime domain.

Finally, the ‘Furor’ can also participate in constabulary and law enforcement missions collaborating with other State Security Forces in surveillance, rescue and marine pollution control missions.

In summary, the P-46 mainly contemplates two possible mission profiles:

PROFILE 1: SEA CONTROL OPERATIONS IN LOW INTENSITY SCENARIOS

These operations can be conducted either at international level, when it comes to implement international resolutions, or at national level, in which you can even cooperate with other State Security Forces.

Some of those tasks are:

• Naval presence.
• Maritime interdiction.
• Protection of merchant traffic.
• Shipping control.
• Protection and support of small units.
• Insertion and recovery of Special Operations units.
• Control and neutralization of terrorist actions.
• Control and neutralization of piracy actions.
• Operations against drug trafficking.
• Operations against human trafficking.
• Participation in NEO Operations.
• Certain operations related to crisis situations such as ‘Humanitarian aid’, ‘Natural disasters, etc.
• Medical assistance at sea.

PROFILE 2: SURVEILLANCE, CONTROL AND COOPERATION OPERATIONS

These actions are carried out in waters that extend beyond our territorial sea, usually within the Exclusive Economic Zone and adjacent maritime spaces of interest. Surveillance, control and cooperation operations normally take place in peacetime and without military threats.

Some of those tasks are:

• Naval presence.
• Control of the activities that take place in those maritime areas.
• Traffic control of dangerous goods.
• Rescue operations (SAR).
• Coordination at sea of small operations.
• Surveillance and control of environmental and anti-pollution legislation.
• Surveillance and control of fishing legislation.
• Collaboration in the training of other units.
• Logistic and medical support.

African Deployment:

The offshore patrol vessel (OPV) ‘Furor’ carried out a deployment off the west coast of Africa, mainly in the waters of the Gulf of Guinea, from February to June 2021.

During the deployment the ‘Furor’ (P-46) remained integrated into the operational structure of the Spanish Navy, under the direction of the Head of the Operations Command (CMOPS).

With the aim of guaranteeing Spain's security and defense, the ship carried out cooperation activities with many coastal states of the Gulf of Guinea, both at sea and in port, seeking to increase their military capabilities in activities related to maritime security, contributing to reduce the existing risks in the area and thus increasing the stability of the region. In this respect, the ship conducted several combined patrols with units from the coastal countries, which strengthened bilateral relations between the two nations and the knowledge transmitted in military cooperation activities.

During the deployment, the P-46 participated in the international exercise ‘Obengame Express 2021’ to increase the awareness of the maritime domain and the preparation of the participating navies in operations against piracy, illicit trafficking, fishing control and shipping protection. Several western navies, such as the United States, Portugal, Italy and France, also took part in this exercise.

As part of the European Union's project called ‘Coordinated Maritime Presences’, the ‘Furor’ carried out a total of three periods of maneuvers with Italian, French and Portuguese ships deployed in the area, allowing the reinforcement of the interoperability between ships and the exchange of information of interest.