The South African Navy’s fourth and last patrol corvette, the SAS Mendi, will set sail from Kiel, Germany, on Friday, the navy said in Pretoria on Wednesday.
The ship, a German-built Meko A200SAN patrol corvette, will be joining her three sisters — the SAS Spioenkop, the SAS Amatola and the SAS Isandhlwana — already at Simon’s Town being fitted with their weapons and electronics.
The Amatola arrived in South African waters last November, the Isandhlwana in February this year and the Spioenkop in May.
The Meko ships are collectively called the ”Valour” class by the navy and each commemorates bravery in wars.
”The symbolism, however, is not in the battle itself, and who the victors were, but the extreme valour shown by the forces involved — both the victors and the defeated,” navy spokesperson Commander Brian Stockton said.
The SAS Mendi, due to arrive in Simon’s Town on September 17, will be visiting Brest, France and Rota, Spain, on her way.
”She will also be laying a wreath on the waters where the former SAS Mendi, the ship she was named after, sank during a collision on February 21 1917,” said Stockton.
Described as South Africa’s worst naval disaster to date, 607 members of the South African Native Labour Corps, nine of their countrymen and 33 crew members died when the boat sank 17km off St Catherine’s Light in the English Channel.
The Spioenkop is named after the January 1900 battle between Boer and British forces for the possession of the hill on the bank of the Tugela River in KwaZulu-Natal. Spioenkop hill marks the site of one of the bloodiest battles of the 1899 to 1902 Anglo-Boer South African War. That conflict ended with the signing of the Peace of Vereeniging on May 31 1902.
The navy’s patrol corvettes were built by the European-South African Corvette Consortium, consisting of the German Frigate Consortium (Blohm+Voss, Thyssen Rheinstahl and Howaldtswerke Deutsche Werf), African Defence Systems (part of the French Thales defence group) and a number of South African companies.
The navy currently has no operational ships in this class, having lost the last of three type-12 anti-submarine warfare frigates, the SAS President Pretorius, to obsolescence in 1986. The corvettes were built to a modern stealth design to avoid enemy radar and infrared detection.
Stockton said that shortly after her arrival, contractors will start fitting her suit and weapons.
”She will then commence harbour trials and sea-acceptance trials prior to commissioning.” — Sapa