Vice Admiral in Chief of the Navy South Africa (SAN), Monde Lobese, announced that the SAS Drakensberg (A301), a support and replenishment ship combat built in the African nation, has been chosen to visit CubaSouth America and the Caribbean at the end of 2024.
The official said the ship, affectionately known as “Drakies” and also by its abbreviation DKB, would participate in “exercises” in Brazilas part of Pretoria’s desire to increase its naval presence within the member countries of the BRICS bloc.
Without giving precise dates, Lobese commented that the visit to Cuba would strengthen “the military relationship between South Africa and the Caribbean island nation.”
The visit is announced after last week a Moscow war flotilla, made up of three ships and a nuclear-powered submarine, visited Havana, in what was considered a Kremlin propaganda action near the US coast.
According to the specialized site Web Defense, Drakensberg’s voyage will cover nearly 4,200 nautical miles to Brazil, and then more than 2,600 nautical miles to Cubaand then returned to its base in Simon’s Town, in South Africa, after another 6,600 nautical miles.
The publication expressed its doubts that the 37-year-old boat is in condition to make the crossing. The above, because a tender from the state arms company, ARMSCOR, requested “maintenance spare parts” for the ship, which had not yet been delivered.
Company public relations officials told Web Defense that they would not comment on the tenders still open.
The SAS Drakensberg was last in “active service”, the report states, at the end of 2019 or beginning of 2020. His last task would have been a deployment as part of Operation Copper in the Mozambique Channel, to neutralize pirates operating in the area.
In April 2012, he helped European warships capture seven Somali pirates in the English Channel.
In 2023, Lobese said the South African Navy would soon begin a project to replace the SAS Drakensberg, even though the country’s Naval Forces were forced to reduce their number of patrol vessels from six to three. But the vice admiral has asked 12 additional coastal and offshore patrol vessels to adequately project South Africa’s maritime domain.
The South African Navy has been exploring a Drakensberg replacement for quite some time, and originally hoped to have a new ship in service by 2021. In 2015, Rear Admiral Bubele Bravo Mhlana, currently Deputy Chief of the Navy, said: “We are currently undergoing a “It’s a lot of pressure, as the Drakensberg has been undergoing major maintenance for the last year and a half. That means being very limited in terms of scope, maintaining operations in distant areas.”
The SAS Drakensberg was launched in April 1986 by the Sandock Austral shipbuilder and commissioned in November of the following year. She has a fully loaded displacement of 12,500 tons and a length of 147 meters. She can transport 5,500 tons of fuel, 750 of ammunition and dry supplies and 210 of fresh water. Furthermore, it can produce 50,000 liters of fresh water daily. She can also accommodate on board two Oryx helicopters, two landing craft and two semi-rigid boats.
The Drakensberg is the largest ship built in South Africa to date and is reportedly the first warship completely designed in the country. In addition to its resupply function, it is employed in search and rescue, patrolling and surveillance tasks, and has considerable potential for use in disaster relief operations.
The operations of the South African military, with decades-long business with its Cuban counterparts, have been under close Western scrutiny. since at the end of 2023 the Russian-flagged ship Lady R will secretly dock at the Simon’s Town naval base, near Cape Town.
Following that event, the United States ambassador to South Africa, Reuben Brigety, denounced that Pretoria had supplied weapons and ammunition to Russia, an operation prohibited by sanctions against Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.
In response, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed a judge to oversee an investigation into the allegations. For his part, Brigety indicated that the United States had intelligence information to support the accusation.
South Africa denied that the Government had approved providing weapons to Russiaalthough he did not rule out that an unofficial transaction involving another entity may have occurred.
The incident strained relations between the United States and South Africa, which is Africa’s most developed economy and a key partner of the West in the region.
In his recent announcements, Lobese indicated that The SAS Amatola, another South African ship, will sail to St. Petersburg, Russia, and participate in the Navy Anniversary Paradeat the end of next July, in what would be the first South African military ship to visit Russia, “which is one of our strategic BRICS partner countries,” said the vice admiral.
