VESSEL REVIEW | Tenente Petrucci – Fast patrol craft enters service with Italy’s financial police

The Guardia di Finanza (GdF), the Italian law enforcement agency that is mainly focused on dealing with financial crimes and drug smuggling, has added a new vessel to its maritime patrol and surveillance fleet.

Tenente Petrucci (“Lieutenant Petrucci”) honours Lieutenant Franco Petrucci, one of three GdF personnel who were killed in the September 9, 1966 terror bombing attack by the southern Italian BAS secessionist group.

The new boat was purchased with co-financing provided by the European Union through its Internal Security Fund. Built by local shipyard Effebi, which had also supplied the GdF with an eight-metre hybrid patrol and surveillance boat for its operations in and around Venice, Tenente Petrucci has a length of 44 metres, a beam of 8.6 metres, and a composite hull that ensures improved seakeeping ability under nearly all weather conditions in addition to being lightweight.

Power is provided by a quartet of MTU 16V2000 M96L diesel engines that each produce 1,939 kW at 2,450 rpm. The engines are connected to waterjets, and this configuration delivers a maximum speed of 45 knots and a range of 1,126 kilometres, making the vessel suitable for extended patrols even farther out in the international waters of the Mediterranean.

To ensure improved stability even in rough seas, a set of four HE1150 and two HAE500 interceptors from Humphree has been installed as well.

Although designed to be operated by only 23 crewmembers, the vessel is able to accommodate up to 150 additional personnel if necessary, such as additional GdF personnel when serving high-risk warrants and recovered survivors following search and rescue (SAR) operations. Firefighting equipment will be incorporated in the vessel in future to make it a highly versatile platform that can augment the GdF’s emergency response capability.

To further enhance the vessel’s ability to carry out law enforcement and emergency response, it is fitted with a stern ramp for launching and recovering a small rigid inflatable boat for use in boardings, interceptions, and SAR. The GdF said Tenente Petrucci is the first vessel in its fleet to feature this capability.

Onboard space is also available for a remotely piloted vehicle that the crew can use to further expand their situational awareness during surveillance and SAR missions.

Tenente Petrucci is being operated by the GdF out of its station in Calabria in southwestern Italy. The vessel began conducting patrols and other missions in June 2021. As with other vessel in the GdF fleet, it is operating under the supervision of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency.

The GdF said the newbuild is merely the first in a planned series of patrol vessels that will boast all-weather capability.

See all the other news, reviews and features of this month’s Maritime Security Week right here.