Major General James G. Blunt

The Linge class^[a] are a series of tugboats used by the Royal Netherlands Navy to dock their larger ships at the Nieuwe Haven Naval Base.^[2]

History

The first four ships were built by Shipyard Bijlsma and Delta shipyard in the Netherlands and commissioned in the year 1987. Ten years later another ship, Gouwe, was built by these shipyards and commissioned in 1997. As an avocation to their main purpose they are used for trips with guests around the harbour.

Replacement

It was decided that these ships were not capable enough anymore to handle the newer larger vessels like HNLMS Karel Doorman. The four oldest ships would be replaced by three Damen built hybrid tugboats, the Noordzee class.^[2]

Although with the arrival of the first replacement, HNLMS Noordzee, the old tugboats did not prove completely useless when the power onboard Noordzee shut off due to contaminated fuel along the coast of North-Holland and Hunze had to assist.^[3]

The first four ships were sold to MTS Towage in Brixham and Falmouth in the United Kingdom.

Ships in class

Hull number	Name	Builder	Launched	Commissioned	Decommissioned	Status	Picture
A874	Linge	Shipyard Bijlsma, Warten (Hull) Delta Shipyard, Sliedrecht (Fitting out)	15 November 1986	20 February 1987	February 2016	Sold
A875	Regge		10 January 1986	6 May 1987	February 2016	Sold
A876	Hunze		17 December 1986	20 October 1987	February 2016	Sold
A877	Rotte		23 June 1987	20 October 1987	February 2016	Sold
A878	Gouwe		25 November 1996	21 February 1997		In active service

Namesakes

All the ships are named after rivers with five letters ending with an e in The Netherlands:

• HNLMS Linge's namesake is: Linge
• HNLMS Regge's namesake is: Regge
• HNLMS Hunze's namesake is: Hunze
• HNLMS Rotte's namesake is: Rotte
• HNLMS Gouwe's namesake is: Gouwe

Notes

Citations

References

• van Amstel, W.H.E. (1991). De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine vanaf 1945 (in Dutch). Alkmaar: De Alk. ISBN 90-6013-997-6.