The Indian Navy on Monday gave a decommissioned fast attack craft to the Kerala government at a function organised at the Naval base here. The ship would be transported to Alappuzha and placed as part of the Port Museum under the Alappuzha Heritage Project, a Defence press release said.
The vessel was part of the Western Naval Command and had participated in various coastal security and port defence missions along the coasts of Maharashtra and Gujarat.
The functions of the ship included round-the-clock surveillance and reconnaissance, coordinated search, and rescue operations, beach insertion, extraction of marine commandos, and high-speed interception of small, manoeuvreable intruder crafts. It had also actively participated in para jumps and duck drops with the Indian Air Force personnel embarked onboard, the release mentioned.
The vessel was decommissioned on 28th January this year in Mumbai and later it was towed to Kerala. IN FAC-81 was commissioned into the Indian Navy on 5th June 1999, by the then Governor of Goa Lieutenant General JFR Jacob, PVSM (retd.).
