Naval News:

A new major milestone in the Qatar Emiri Naval Forces (QENF) fleet renewal and empowering program was reached by Fincantieri shipbuilding group, on 18 November, when the First-of-Class (FoC) “Al Zubarah” (F 101) multirole corvette conducted the first seagoing out of Fincantieri’s Muggiano shipyard, where the vessel has been built.

This event follows the launch of the first-of-class Musherib OPV (Q 61), last September. The FoC multirole corvette (with a focus on air defense) is to be delivered in 2021 while the FoC OPV will follow in 2022, according to Fincantieri. The latter is working hard to mitigate the production slowdown caused by the national lockdown period in the first year’s half and the follow-on restrictions due to the pandemic.

While we recently wrote about the vessel, the first seagoing of the Al Zubarah corvette allowed us, for the first time, to have a look at the ship’s design and capabilities. Due to the pandemic and the connected restrictions, the new warship was launched last February with a private ceremony and only few official images were released since the first steel-cut ceremony in July 2018 and the dry dock work launch in November 2018…

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