DSEI 2019: BMT unveils multirole support ship design concept

Ship design and systems engineering house BMT has extended its family of afloat support and logistics vessel designs with the addition of a third offering, dubbed ELLIDA.

ELLIDA was showcased for the first time at the 2019 Defence and Security Equipment International exhibition (DSEI 2019) in London, and joins BMT’s two existing naval auxiliary platforms: SALVAS and AEGIR. SALVAS is a utility auxiliary designed for a range of tasks including salvage and towing, diving support, submarine rescue, maintenance and repair, and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) operations, while the AEGIR design, which is in service in the United Kingdom and Norway, is a replenishment ship.

BMT's new ELLIDA multirole support and logistics vessel design in display at DSEI in London. (Kate Tringham/IHS Markit)

Speaking to Jane’s on 11 September at DSEI, Andy Kimber, BMT’s chief naval architect, said ELLIDA fills a capability gap in BMT’s naval auxiliary portfolio by adding a ship focused on logistics and ro-ro transport that is based around volume rather than weight.

“So what we have is a platform with a very large internal vehicle deck,” Kimber explained. “On this particular version it’s about 700 lane metres of internal vehicle storage and it has a dock at the back for two landing craft and it can carry 350 troops. The idea is that it’s a ship that carries logistics equipment, but it’s also multirole so we’ve been exploring what other suitable capability we can get from that platform given that it’s essentially a vessel with lots of space on it.”