The Dutch Van Speijk is leaving operational readiness prematurely. This was announced by the country's Ministry of Defence on 22 April, after the crew had already been informed the day before. The reason is a significant shortage of personnel on board. The crew will be reassigned to other ships in the Dutch navy at short notice, for example on the sister ship Van Amstel.
The shortage of personnel is not limited to the two frigates in the Karel-Doorman -class, but extends to all surface vessels. Technical personnel in particular are in short supply, which means that the de facto decommissioning of the Van Speijk became unavoidable from summer 2021.
The 122 metre long ship with a displacement of 2800 tonnes was put into service in 1995. It is the eighth and last ship in the Karel Doormann-class. After a long period in the shipyard, it has only been in service again since 2017, including in the fight against drug smuggling in the Caribbean, in a NATO naval unit and in various major manoeuvres of the alliance. It was only last year that the Royal Navy decided to keep the ship in service and a lot has been done since then to bring this decision to life.
Text: mb, Photo: Koninklijke Marine
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the staff shortage cannot be attributed to gender ..... unfortunately we have enough lowbrows in our male political elite ....
Have they done a lot, but obviously forgotten to train enough technical staff? Do they have ladies as competent as AKK or von der Leyen at the top (Irionie off)?