PIRIOU registered an order for a Maritime Training Ship (MTS) to be operated by navOcéan, a joint company created by PIRIOU and DCI.

This 44-meter ship will be delivered in autumn 2013 and will be named “Almak” (Desert Lynx) as a star of the constellation of Andromeda.

Construction will be ensured by CHANTIERS PIRIOU, the naval construction branch based in Concarneau (France), and its maintenance by PIRIOU NAVAL SERVICES within the scope of a 10-year In-Service Support (ISS) contract.

Close collaboration has allowed PIRIOU and DCI to design a new generation Maritime Training Ship prototype that is sturdy with high manoeuvring capabilities, economical in terms of investment and operating costs.

This training ship would be able to embark 7 crew members, 2 passengers and 16 trainees and instructors. A spacious Bridge will offer 360° vision; navigation equipment, notably radar and synthetic cartography, will be equipped with repeaters in the training room; the ship's draft will be optimized for the apprenticeship of navigation and manoeuvres in coastal areas. Its endurance will allow one-week transits at 10 knots without port of call.

An increasing number of foreign Naval Forces (Middle-East, Maghreb) entrust DCI with the training of young cadets for a 4-year curriculum within CENOE (naval academy training courses for foreign officers). Growth in at-sea training requests leads DCI to acquire its own training ship. Of course this training conserves the «French Navy» label. Its activity will essentially consist in practical at-sea training sessions delivered by DCI, for periods from one to several weeks without port of call. The ship will spend 35 to 40 weeks per year at sea.

For the operation and maintenance of the training ship, DCI and Piriou have entered a long-term partnership by creating a company in common, navOcéan.

“We have more foreign trainees to train and in a more thorough manner.  We have decided to contribute addition means to those of the French Navy with the construction of this ship by a French company, in Concarneau,” said Jean-Louis Rotrubin, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of DCI.  

For Pascal PIRIOU, President of the PIRIOU Executive Board “this strategic operation simply represents the ambitions that we place at the service of our customers: construct their vessels, maintain them and participate in the development of common synergies, notably on an international level» adding that with this contract «we enter the «military» construction sector, which further extends our scope of activities after the order for the ship, and for the first time, we are setting up long-term contract-based links with a customer, by creating a ship construction and ISS package.”