KRI Klewang total loss after fire aboard ship

The Indonesian Navy's fast missile trimaran, KRI Klewang, caught fire yesterday afternoon while pierside in East Java.

Images uploaded from Friday afternoon show Klewang burned down to the waterline. Ship is a total loss. No word on casualties. Am awaiting further information from the yard.

The trimaran is made almost entirely of carbon fibre composites. Fully fuelled, the Klewang can embark 50,000 litres of fuel for her four MAN engines.

North Sea Boats explained in an earlier email that Klewang was built entirely in Indonesia, not merely assembled from modules shipped to the yard.

The shipbuilder said:"We built the boat from scratch. The rounded underwater hull sections were infused in a temporary wooden female moulds. The rest of the structure was built from flat, CNC cut, PVC cored, composite carbon fibre sandwich panels, that were infused on a large vacuum table, using room temperature cured vinylester resin."

The fire which razed Klewang in two hours unmasks the survivability of this class of ship. Warship enthusiasts would note that post battle analysis of Falklands war losses (especially HMS Antelope, HMS Ardent), the Exocet attack on USS Stark and the 1991 Gulf War (Coalition versus Iraqi fast patrol boats) persuaded naval designers to move away from aluminium superstructures to all-steel construction for a more robust ship design.

In the case of Indonesia's trimaran, the advantage of a lightweight vessel that was hard to detect on radar came at a price of a combustible design, as was vividly demonstrated yesterday.

The earlier post on KRI Klewang is found here.

Navy vessel catches fire in Banyuwangi

Wahyoe Boediwardhana, The Jakarta Post, Banyuwangi, East Java
Archipelago
Fri, September 28 2012, 9:37 PM

A fire raged through the Indonesian Navy's KRI Klewang-625 at the naval port in Banyuwangi, East Java on Friday at 3:15 p.m. No casualties have been reported but the Rp 114 billion (US$11.91 million) ship was severely damaged.

Indonesian Eastern Fleet (Armatim) spokesman Lt. Col. Marine Yayan Sugiana told The Jakarta Post that the vessel was undergoing maintenance by its builder, PT Lundin Industry. “The vessel had yet to be officially handed over to the Navy. It was still undergoing maintenance checks by PT Lundin Industry,” he said.

The navy, however, said it would investigate the blaze, which lasted for two hours before fire fighters managed to extinguish it. “We will deploy a team to investigate the cause of the fire. We will use the report to evaluate the case,” he said.

PT Lundin Industry's director, Lisa Lundin, said the company would deliver an official statement relating to the incident on Monday.

The making of the carbon-fiber composite vessel was initiated in 2007, when PT Lundin Industry undertook extensive research into building a fast, modern ship capable of evading radar. In 2009, PT Lundin started the construction of the 63-meter-long vessel.

Around 30 Armatim members were trained to operate the vessel in September this year. (ENDS)