The Ministry of Defence has awarded a £476 million contract to Foreland Shipping to continue the Interim Strategic Sealift (SSL-I) service.
The agreement, running from January 2025 to December 2031, ensures the UK’s ability to deploy military equipment globally, supporting operations critical to national security and NATO commitments.
According to the MoD, the SSL-I contract is designed to “provide a capability that is optimised for strategic lift in the maritime environment.” It ensures the rapid deployment of military logistics in diverse operational settings. A key requirement is for the vessels to be globally deployable, with the MoD highlighting their ability to “deliver cargo to the right place, at the right time, without damage or degradation” and to “exploit the most expedient transit routes, including the Panama and Suez canals.”
Foreland Shipping will provide four vessels—Anvil Point, Hartland Point, Hurst Point, and Eddystone—offering over 9,600 lane metres of cargo space. These Roll-On/Roll-Off (RoRo) vessels will be available for tasking 355 days a year and must be operational within 72 hours of receiving instructions.
The MoD listed the vessels’ versatility as a requirement, noting they are “equipped to transport Authority Equipment, Cargo, and Goods, including Main Battle Tanks (MBTs), Armoured Fighting Vehicles (AFVs), and Heavy Equipment Transporters (HETs).” Additionally, the ships’ “strengthened hulls and decks” and “double hull arrangements” enhance survivability and support operations in challenging conditions, including ice-class certification for Baltic missions.
The vessels have, as readers will know, been specifically tailored to meet military requirements. Unlike typical commercial RoRo ships, the MoD states these vessels “allow access to all containers at sea while fully secured to the ship” and feature “self-supporting ramps for offloading in ports with limited or damaged infrastructure.”
They are also compatible with Mexeflote systems for amphibious operations.
Foreland’s ships also incorporate advanced communication systems, including OSPREY NACIS or its successor, and the capability to integrate ballistic protection and weapon mounts. The MoD stressed that these vessels are “configured for extended range at economical speed,” enabling sustained support for British forces stationed abroad with minimal reliance on home support.
The Point-Class Vessels
The Point class is a series of roll-on/roll-off sealift ships introduced in 2002 under a Private Finance Initiative to enhance the UK’s military transport capabilities. Designed following the Strategic Defence Review, these vessels are tailored to transport large quantities of military cargo, including up to 130 armoured vehicles and 60 trucks. Built by Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft in Germany and Harland and Wolff in Belfast, the vessels are named after prominent British points and headlands.
The ships operate with small civilian crews trained as sponsored reserves, allowing them to be placed under military command during crises.
With a length of 193 metres and a displacement of 23,000 tonnes, the vessels boast a range of 17,000 kilometres and a top speed of 21.5 knots. Their reinforced structures allow the transport of heavy military equipment, while their self-supporting ramps enable efficient offloading in ports with limited infrastructure. Additionally, the ships’ ice-class certification makes them capable of operating in Baltic conditions, enhancing the UK’s operational flexibility.
The Point class replaced the Royal Fleet Auxiliaries Sea Centurion and Sea Crusader and has been pivotal in supporting British operations since their introduction. While two ships were sold in 2013 due to budget cuts, the remaining four continue to provide critical capabilities, having supported major deployments such as the Iraq invasion in 2003.
The future of the RFA? Privatise and recruit/attract sponsored reserves.
RN divest the RFA. Cunning plan?
£500 million? should have been a couple more T31 if wee have that much more money lying around
And then we’d have had been left with no sealift capability…
That probably wouldn’t buy 1 the costs keep going up for the “cheap frigate”.
Great functional ships but are they fitted out even FFBNW for any armaments? There seems to be lots of deck space for Phalanx, Ancilia, 30/40mm, containerised pods and other RWS if needed.
They are not warships. They are specifically not amphibious warfare ships. They are purely for transport.
Amphibious warfare entails the movement of troops and equipment by sea. But not every instance of movement of troops and equipment by sea is an instance of amphibious warfare.
A battalion of infantry, even a poorly equipped British battalion, had a lot of stuff to be moved when it deploys outside of Europe.
The Army, more specifically the MoD or as was the War Office, before the jet age used civilian shipping for trooping. Lines like P&O, Bibby, and British India among others had ships just for this work painted in the traditional white with a blue band troop ship livery. The Sir / Roundtable Class LSL were originally operated by British India not the RFA. If you look on the net you can see pictures of LSL’s painted in troop ship livery not grey.
The Foreland contract is just a continuation of this.
But then the bay class are not amphibious warfare ships, they are logistics ships.
I can’t see where anybody mentioned the Bay class apart from you. A ferry is not a warship. A trawler is not a warship. The row boat on the lake on the town’s park is not a warship. Anything other type of ship you want to list that are not warships?
How is that germaine to the discussion? Or are you just keen to remind everybody that you are just stupid? You are not being clever saying stuff like that.
Foxtrot Oscar
The goddamn Germans got nothin’ to do with it!
What an arse you are are, did you have a bad day. I was adding something called “context” to your discussion as you were taking the difference between amphibious vessels and logistic vessels, specifically about the round table class, which the bays are replacements for …..but I will not bother in future because your clearly unable to have a conversation without being a Charlie, Uniform, November Tang. So Foxtrot, Uniform, Charlie, kilo, Yankee, Oscar, Uniform….oooh look I can use the phonic alphabet as well…how big am I.
@Jonathan Stephanie is just a troll looking for arguments, I’d encourage you to keep correcting them when they kick off just to highlight what they are.
@Dern, Cheers, yes I will highlight the troll like behaviour of this individual when it occurs, 👍
Read the article…
This was tweeted about two years ago by Navy Lookout as a £625m “interim” contract extention over the same dates, 2025 to 2031 and was included in the Wiki “Point Class” page. So how does that work? Has there been a renegotiation to the lower price? When is a contract not a contract?
The new interim contract runs for 7 years so @ £70m per year. The Navy Lookout article refers to £625m in 2022. I wonder if this was the price for 9 years. It’s odd because the original contract ran to 31/12/2024, so renewal wasn’t needed until then. A redacted version of the new contract is online but runs to over 400 pages.
This seems to be a sensible use of PFI.
The capability is obviously needed but I feel the taxpayer is being fleeced here.
£476 million over six years for four ships works out at £19.8 million annually.
A Type 45 costs about £13 million to run annually and has a higher number of crew and substantially more expensive systems.
This is a capability that should be brought in house, to maximise tax payer value. it would potentially be a good idea to replace the 4 point vessels at UK yards like H&W or Cammell Laird, to keep skills alive and nurture the shipbuilding industry to support MoD projects.
Firstly how do you crew them and secondly you are just comparing day to day running costs but not the support, maintenance and refit costs. TBH given the present state of our amphibious lift it’s a Billy bargain.
As for building replacements at H&W and CL it’s a non starter, H&W has to regenerate its build capability, build 3 FSS and then probably the MRSS all of which we desperately need. Meanwhile CL has zero new build capability anymore, that went out the window 5 years ago, but is very busy carrying out refits and building parts of T26 and probably FSS / MRSS.
Meanwhile we are officially broke so I’m just surprised they funded even this deal.
As you say, CL is building modules/parts for Type 26 and Dreadnought but is also building a small ferry.
I assume that £13m doesn’t include a pro-rata rate for the orginal purchase price of the ship.
It doesn’t seem kinda high considering they can be used for commercial activities most of the year, but I guess it means an upfront investment isn’t needed to buy/build the ships, which the RN / RFA couldn’t afford.
I meant does seem high.
I just have to wonder what the par rate for the civilian crew is compared to RFA and wouid they also be in the RMT.
The crew on these ships are rather special in that they all have to be reservists..which means they are all British citizens. That’s a bit more expensive than your normal crew.
Hence why it looks expensive….
If only the same logic was use to solve the RFA pay crisis we might not be mothballing a Bay and struggling to crew anything.
I’m lost for words.
I agree.. the problem is they are not even keeping the RFA competitive with international merchant shipping pay rates and they are dragged down by the fact most merchants are now crewed by second world crews.
It’s made worse by the RN essentially abandoning amphibious warfare and handing it to the RFA, which is quickly frantically insane as Auxiliaries are not commissioned warships and cannot initiate military action…we now have an amphibious force that is unable to undertake belligerent action…that’s messed up…what is even more messed up is I suspect they will if required push those RFA vessels into undertaking belligerent action, which would mean if something catastrophic happened and they fell into enemy hands the crews could legally be executed.
PFI is away of the government funding expensive projects with other peoples money without declaring the debt…. Always an expensive option. Think
new hospitals, schools, prisons and Air Tanker.
Is it part if the defence budget?
They are, but it’s because the newspapers mislead the public about how goverment debt works and we generally do poorly as a nation at teaching the basics of finance or economics. Governments have to therefore play the game, even if it means longer term costs to the nation.
PFI is the infratructure investment equivalent of a pay-day loan.
Good.
A vital capability.
So were the Point-class sealift ship bought by the MOD as part of a PFI, released for private use until they were needed? I’m a bit confused.
The are chartered ( via a long charter) from foreland shipping..foreland own them, but essentially the MOD pays for their use…it’s a bit like a lease hold property..although you don’t own it you own the right to use it as long as you keep up your ground rent.
Point class have proved to be flexible and versatile but at over 20 years old they are aging. Surely replacements should be on the drawing board.
See two were flogged off by Cameron in 2013. Never stops. As we are now broke and likely to get broker with RR’s budget things can only get worse. We need competence.
I would urge anybody who thinks that these ships have poor value to follow them on sites such as vessel finder. In recent times they have been visiting Sunny Point, Polish and German ports. One has just returned from the South Atlantic. They have also been moving kit to Sweden, Norway, Poland, Germany, Denmark and the Baltic States for exercises and things like air policing duties. Another telling point is how often their AIS mysteriously turns of mid voyage. As was the case with the recent South Atlantic trip.
The real question we should be asking is when do we replace them. Merchant ships can have long lives, However given their hull age in 2031 it would seem sensible to plan now for modern replacements, Awarding a contract on a fixed price to build four replacements with delivery commencing in 2031 so that by circa 2036/7 they have been replaced.
Agree, but to be honest I would like them to go to the RFA. Personally I think there has been a slippage, the RN has slipped away from commissioned amphibious warfare ships, mine warfare ships and surveillance and dumped the whole lot on the RFA. Whose job it is was to actually move stuff, not do stuff that commissioned warships are meant to be doing ( for legal reasons). I would like to see the RN establishment to a point where our amphibious capabilities are again based around commissioned warships and the auxiliaries then transport later.
The RFA should really be
3 large logistic docks ( bay class logistic ships and replacement)
4 large sea lift ships ( point class )
4 large faster replenishment oilers
3 solid stores ship
1 role 3 medical ship and disaster relief dogs body.
The RN needs to commission 2 amphibious vessels for front line amphibious operations that include belligerent activities.. all the mine warfare vessels and the undersea surveillance vessels.
If the aim is to replace Albions, Bays and Argus with a single design MRSS, it would be odd to have some RN crewed and others RFA operated. The description of them as “large non complex warships” would suggest RN crewing is most likely.
I wish it were true, but in reality, Those 6 MRSS ships are now replacing 4 RFA logistic vessels as the RN has stepped out of the amphibious game and is scrapping the 2 Albions a decade before the replacements are ready, that means:
1) we are not getting 6 MRSS, we are getting 4 if we are luck as direct replacements to the 3 bays and Argus …my bet is we get 3 as even now one of the bays is lain up without a crew and will be for the next few years.
2) as the navy has now essentially got rid of its amphibious crews there is no way it will be able to regenerate 3-6 MRSS in the early/mid 2030s as this will be the peek time in which the escort fleet moves from its low of around 12 vessels in the late 2020s to 19 by 2035 and even 24 if a second batch of T31/32s are ordered.. the RN will only be interested in regenerating major surface combatant crews as well as maintaining the carriers crews..they are not going to find the crews for 3-6 MRSS..the best possible outcome would be if we could have two of the MRSS as full fat commissioned warships.
The risk is that if the RN can manage without the Albions for the next 7/8 years, why replace them at all? Then we see your scenario in which RFA crewed vessels are all that is replaced. But, even given the changing role of the RMs, something will be needed to deliver them to shore. Modest sized Damen designs seem to have been ruled out in favour of ” large non complex warships”. It would be odd to replace the Albions with something similar. Their biggest limitation was helicopter capacity. To rectify that, we might need a through deck design- Ocean or a Mistral type. But if we have an underused QE, why not use that for helicopter based amphibious operations?
@ Peter
Yes there is a very big risk that the RN will not replace them at all and simply consider the QE class as their core asset for any major offensive amphibious operation. In reality a bay type logistic vessel is adequate for defensive amphibious operations such enforcement of an ally, say on the northern flank so if the RN decides the Elizabeth’s will be that offensive element the Albions will never be replaced. Personally I think the RN needs two MRSS kitted out for offensive operations, so command and control facilities as well a very good defensive weapons suite ( including medium guns with guided rounds) to be commissioned and crewed as warships. Then a couple of MRSS with very good role three medical facilities crewed as auxiliaries and a couple of MRSS optimised for logistics and max space for moving stuff.