Maritime surveillance continues amid summer vacation and heat wave

At any given time, some 4 000 trade ships traffic the Baltic Sea, on their way to load or unload goods. Maritime traffic is vital to the functioning of our community. The Baltic Sea is also of high interest to many nations that use it for exercises or demonstrating presence with their navy ships.

A foreign navy ship under surveillance. Many nations show an interest in the Baltic Sea, and it is not only the littoral states around the Baltic Sea that demonstrate presence with navy ships. Photo: HMS Nyköping/Swedish Armed Forces

Detecting anomalies is crucial

The Navy’s ships patrol the Baltic Sea and the Swedish west coast in order to get a picture of the civilian and military ships that are on route. The navy is supported by the maritime surveillance centres on the mainland. This surveillance allows for reports of regular activities, and facilitates the detection of a change of the situation in the Baltic Sea region. Also, Sweden demonstrates naval presence as well as willingness and determination to defend our territory. During the Midsummer weekend (third weekend of June), it was the Fourth Naval Flotilla and HMS Ven that were on duty, and last week, the Third Naval Flotilla took over with the Visby corvette HMS Nyköping. The ship is now on its last few days of maritime surveillance duty, before releasing the crew to a well-deserved leave. Peter Lindén has recently signed on as ship commander:

"We have had good days at sea and amazing weather and we have been able to combine maritime surveillance with regular crew training. On a navy ship there is always something new to learn or knowledge to repeat".