Nearly PLN 250 million for a new multipurpose SAR vessel. Remontowa Shipbuilding to build it

A contract has been signed in Gdynia for the construction of a new multipurpose rescue vessel for Poland's Maritime Search and Rescue Service (MSPiR). Described as the most advanced unit in the history of Polish maritime rescue, the ship will be built by the Gdańsk yard Remontowa Shipbuilding S.A. The contract, worth nearly PLN 250 million (around EUR 58 million), brings to a close years of efforts to strengthen the SAR fleet and forms part of a broader, EU co-financed modernisation programme. The vessel is due to enter service by the end of 2028.

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24 june 2026   |   08:47   |   Source: Gazeta Morska   |   Prepared by: Kamil Kusier   |   Print

fot. Kamil Kusier / Gazeta Morska

The ceremony took place on Tuesday, 23 June 2026. The signing was attended by, among others, Deputy Infrastructure Minister Arkadiusz Marchewka, the head of the Maritime Search and Rescue Service Sebastian Kluska, and Adam Ruszkowski, president of the management board of Remontowa Holding S.A. The contract is valued at PLN 249.9 million, financed largely from the European Union budget under the European Funds for Infrastructure, Climate and Environment (FEnIKS) programme and supplemented by the Polish state budget.

"Poland has never had a vessel like this"

Representatives of the ministry and the Service alike describe the new unit as a step change in the capabilities of Polish maritime rescue.

- Poland has never had a vessel like this. It will be the most modern unit in the fleet of the Maritime Search and Rescue Service. We have just signed the contract for a multipurpose rescue vessel that will serve to ensure safety at sea, said Deputy Infrastructure Minister Arkadiusz Marchewka during the ceremony.

The vessel's remit, he noted, will be unusually broad.

- It will be used, for example, to save human life, to fight fires on board ships, to escort them safely to port, and to remove spills and pollution from vessels, he said.

It is precisely this versatility that is meant to set the new design apart. Beyond search-and-rescue operations, the ship is to support pollution-response work and the protection of the marine ecosystem, with operational capabilities aligned with international SAR standards.

A multipurpose ship from the B618 family

The vessel's technical parameters were already outlined in the tender documentation. The ship is to measure between 55 and 65 metres in length and at least 13 metres in beam, with a draught of no less than 4 metres. Its working deck is to offer a minimum of 250 m², and its maximum speed is to be at least 15 knots.

The design was conceived with operational flexibility in mind. The core crew is to number 12, but the project also provides accommodation for an additional eight personnel, allowing a coordination team to be deployed on board for a larger rescue or pollution-response operation when required.

Based on the released visualisation and the published parameters, the new unit will most likely be the latest member of the B618 design family, the same lineage that produced the multipurpose vessels Planeta I and Zodiak II, built for the maritime offices in Gdynia and Szczecin, as well as the hydrographic ships contracted this spring by the Armament Agency (Agencja Uzbrojenia) for the Polish Navy. For comparison, the baseline B618 units measure about 60 metres in length and just under 13 metres in beam and carry a crew of 21, placing the SAR variant at the upper end of that size range.

An end to a run of failed tenders

The signing closes a procedure that for years had stood as a symbol of the difficulties in renewing the rescue fleet. MSPiR launched the tender on 31 March 2025, opened the bids in September, and announced the outcome on 20 February 2026.

Two Polish yards competed. Remontowa Shipbuilding S.A. priced its bid at PLN 249.9 million, while the Gdynia yard CRIST S.A. offered PLN 212.9 million. Both figures fell within the PLN 259 million budget earmarked for the project, which gave a realistic chance of a different outcome than in previous years, when successive attempts to build a large rescue vessel had ended in cancellation. In the end, the contracting authority selected Remontowa Shipbuilding's offer, the one closest to the planned budget.

The yard's third contract in a month

For the Gdańsk yard, building the rescue vessel is the latest in a quick succession of orders for units of strategic importance to the state.

"This is a great honour for us. Over the past 30 days we have signed our third contract: two hydrographic vessels under the SAFE programme and, today, a third unit for the Polish state, also linked to security in the broad sense," said Adam Ruszkowski, president of the management board of Remontowa Holding S.A.

Those hydrographic vessels, based on the same B618 project, stem from a May contract with the Armament Agency. Within a matter of weeks, then, the same slipway has produced orders spanning three different roles: hydrographic for the Navy and rescue for the maritime administration. It is a telling illustration of how a single proven hull design can serve a broad spectrum of state tasks at sea.

From the 2012 Sztorm to a next-generation unit

The new contract is bound to the past by a clear thread. The backdrop to the ceremony was the Sztorm, moored at the quay: a SAR-3000 rescue vessel that the Gdańsk yard delivered to the Maritime Search and Rescue Service back in 2012.

- We are doubly proud, because the Sztorm, standing right behind us, was built at Remontowa Shipbuilding in 2012 and remains in safe service to this day, Ruszkowski noted.

Fourteen years after the Sztorm was handed over, the same yard is to deliver a vessel a class larger and far more capable. It is a symbolic mark of the continuity of Polish shipbuilding expertise in specialised rescue craft.

Safety for a growing offshore workforce

While the new rescue vessel is intended for the whole of Poland's SAR area of responsibility on the Baltic, its rationale increasingly turns on offshore wind. As more wind farms come online in the Baltic, the number of people working at sea every day will rise, and with it the scale of potential incidents requiring a rapid rescue and medical response.

The head of the Maritime Search and Rescue Service, Sebastian Kluska, tied the need for the new unit directly to the growth of Baltic offshore wind.

- We have to remember that once the P2 and P3 wind farms start operating, around 2,000 people will be heading out to sea there every day for work. We will be able to give those people a quick return home in case of danger, said Kluska. - The scale of that challenge will only grow with further offshore wind investment, as the area requiring constant rescue readiness moves ever further from shore. In this context, the new unit is meant to act as a maritime safety backbone for the offshore sector: capable not only of search and rescue and of providing medical assistance, but also of firefighting, of escorting endangered vessels to port and of responding to spills in a zone of intense maritime activity.

The project's provision for deploying an additional team on board and for sustaining prolonged operations across a wide area is intended to maintain a short response time where smaller rescue boats have limited range.

Part of a larger puzzle

Building the multipurpose rescue vessel is the largest, but not the only, investment in renewing the MSPiR fleet. The Service's fleet today includes, among others, three SAR-3000 sea rescue vessels, the Pasat, Orkan and Sztorm, the multipurpose rescue vessel Kapitan Poinc and the oil-pollution response unit Czesław II, alongside a network of smaller rescue boats and shore-based craft stationed along the coast.

In parallel with the new ship, the Service is pursuing further projects: six new rescue boats contracted in 2025 from the Finnish yard Kewatec (provisionally designated SAR-2000), the modernisation of three SAR-3000 vessels and deliveries of smaller pollution-response boats. Almost the entire fleet-expansion programme is co-financed from FEnIKS funds for 2021-2027, making the coming years the deepest period of equipment renewal in Polish maritime rescue in a decade.

What comes next

Under the schedule, Remontowa Shipbuilding has 30 months from the signing to design, build and deliver the unit. That means the new multipurpose rescue vessel should enter service by the end of 2028 and, for many years to come, become the flagship asset of the Maritime Search and Rescue Service in Poland's Baltic area of responsibility.

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