T121 Spica

Class: Spica Patrol/Torpedo Boat
Launched: 1966
At: Götaverken AB Goteborg, Sweden
Decommissioned: 1987

Length: 42.5 m
Beam: 7.1 m
Draft: 2.6 m
Displacement: 210 tons
Machinery: 3 Bristol-Siddeley gas-turbine engines
Speed: Maximum speed above 40 knots
Armament: One 57 mm Bofors Dual Purpose Gun, Six 53 cm wire-guided torpedoes, two 7.62 mm machine guns m/58, Mines, Depth charges

Address:
The T121 Spica Foundation
Forsavägen 1
SE-124 32 Bandhagen
Sweden
 
T121 Spica Friends Association
c/o Lennart Törnberg
Djuprännilen 356
SE-137 67 Jordbro
SWEDEN
Tel: +46 70-627-5397
Email: [email protected]
http://www.t121spica.se/uk/index.asp
Latitude: 59.3270213801, Longitude: 18.0904448396
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At the end of the 1950s the Swedish Navy started the planning for successors to their ships in the Plejad class. After extensive studies and comparisons between Norwegian, English, and German torpedo boats, Sweden finally decided to buy drawings from the Lürssen shipyard for the Jaguar-type boat with a steel hull. These drawings made the base for the new Swedish torpedo boat project, called T121 Spica.

Despite its design with a relatively small hull and displacement, the Spica carried weaponry quite up to the standard of the destroyers from World War II. This class of ship revolutionized the warfare capabilities of torpedo boats through a wide range of novelties, and it was a breakthrough in applied electronics technology. Its key innovations:

• Compact gas-turbine machinery. Almost 3 hp/kg engine-weight
• Short and wide hull. A very stable platform able to carry heavy weapons
• Bridge and Operations Room at the rolling and stamping centre of the ship made it possible for the crew to maintain a high degree of effectiveness even in high seas.
• Wire-guided hydrogen-peroxide propelled torpedoes from the surface, invisible track.
• Fire-control system built on digital technology. A computer from 1962!
• Possibility to close the ship air-tight and take in air via special filters made it possible to pass through NBC-contaminated areas.

During winter Spica is at her winter home at the navy torpedo boat base at Gålö (Djupviken, Latitude 59.07461400, Longitude 18.20460300). While at the restricted access military base she cannot be vivited. She is open to the public Saturdays and Sundays during summer (May 28, September 10, June-August) when moored at the Vasa-museum (http://www.vasamuseet.se/) in the centre of Stockholm and also during the "Skeppsholmen-day" the first Sunday in September every year.

Skeppsholmen-day in 2004

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