On Wednesday August 22nd at Riga passenger port a formal ceremony of acceptance of Patrol ship Viesīte will take place. Ceremony is going to be attended by the Minister of Defense Artis Pabriks, the National Armed Forces Commande Raimonds Graube, Navy fleet commander Navy Captain Rimants Štrimaitis, and other officials.
After the formal speech the Minister of Defense will give the flag of ship to the commander of Viesīte Lieutenant Talis Dzerve to put the flag on the mast.
In honor of acceptance ceremony at the Bridge Vanšu there will be the ships built during this Project : Skrunda and Cēsis; headquarters and procurement ship „Varonis”. The building of patrol ship Viesīte was started in June 17th, 2009 and it is third out of five new SWATH type patrol ships built for Latvian Navy and one completely been built in JSC “Rīgas kuģu būvētava”.
Those two-hull patrol ships can be used as for military purposes as well as for civilian purposes. The ships Skrunda and Cesis are already being used for patrols, human search and rescue at the sea and the ships are equipped with oil consequences remediation, the mine searching and destruction equipment.
Construction of patrol vessels is in line with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and RKB Coast Guard patrol boats construction and supply contracts, which was concluded on 21st of December 2007. The agreement shall provide that all five ships scheduled to release to MoD by year 2014.