Vard Marine Inc. (VARD), a Fincantieri company, is proud to launch the Vigilance Offshore Patrol Vessel (OPV) at CANSEC 2023 in conjunction with Team Vigilance partner companies Heddle Shipyards, Thales Canada, SH Defence, and Fincantieri. Collectively, Team Vigilance partner companies bring vast and impressive capabilities and experience to bear in naval ship design, Canadian and global shipbuilding, the integration of combat and offboard systems, modular payload systems, and life-cycle solutions. This collaboration ensures Team Vigilance is able to meet the needs of any naval operator in this space and beyond. Tailored to the needs of the Royal Canadian Navy’s future fleet, Vigilance strikes the balance between flexibility, adaptability, and size, while maintaining the life-cycle cost advantages VARD’s naval designs are known for. The vessel has been conceived for high-tempo sovereignty missions and engineered for global deployment and forward basing abroad.
Cost effective and forward-looking, Vigilance will fulfill critical operational needs through a combination of organic and modular capabilities, enabling core naval mission such as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, subsea infrastructure protection, mine countermeasures, resource conservation, and maritime interdiction operations. The seamless integration of the CUBETM plug-and-play mission module and payload handling system ensures Vigilance remains future-proof and can offer a true multi-mission capability regardless of the tasks assigned to the vessel.
Derek Buxton, Vice President Business Development, Vard Marine Inc., said, “With our experience in designing modern multi-mission OPVs such as the RCN’s AOPS and the USCG’s Heritage Class Cutters, and the vast, aligned, experience of our Team Vigilance partners, we stand ready to support the Government of Canada throughout the ongoing conception, development, delivery, and deployment of their future offshore patrol vessel program.
Intended to satisfy projected future demands under the second pillar of the Government of Canada’s National Shipbuilding Strategy as a replacement for the Kingston Class Maritime Coastal Defence Vessels, these new ships will be designed, built, and equipped in Canada. Vigilance will provide the sailors of the Royal Canadian Navy and the Royal Canadian Naval Reserve the modern tools they need to protect Canada’s vital interests at home and abroad.
Vard Marine Inc. is a consulting naval architecture and marine engineering company established in 1983 and is now a wholly owned subsidiary of VARD Group AS in Norway, a Fincantieri company. The company itself has undergone numerous ownership changes, the most recent being the evolution of Vard Marine Inc. from the purchase of STX Marine (STXM) from STX Offshore and Shipbuilding Group in July 2014. This new ownership gives us access to a design and construction database from both VARD Group and Fincantieri. To meet the high level of expertise required to provide innovative and effective solutions to clients? demands, Vard Marine employs more than one hundred people between its three offices in Vancouver, BC, Ottawa, ON and Houston, TX. The combined educational background and diverse practical experience of the Vard Marine staff makes for a dynamic team ready to face any challenge.
