Go to content Go to search about Danish Defence website Go to right bar
Admiral Danish Fleet
Armed Forces badge
28. November 2010

Globalnavigation

clear
Ships in the ARK Project

Content area

 
The ARK project 

At the NATO summit Prague 2002 the focus was mobility and Denmark together with a number of other nations signed a “Statement Of Intent” regarding assured access to sealift capability for the alliance.

Denmark chose to take the lead on this subject and initiated an analysis to find the best model. The models available was buying new, buying used, full time charter, periodic time charter, voyage charter and assured access contract.

Fulltime charter of Roll On Roll Off vessels was chosen and Denmark launched the ARK project in 2003 with a little staff of three persons and TOR ANGLIA in full Time Charter. This proved to be a successful model and already the following year the next vessel TOR FUTURA was chartered.

In 2006 the ARK project was enlarged with a cooperation with MOD Germany. The agreement regarding this cooperation was signed November 2006 and this made Germany and Denmark common owners of the ARK project. This agreement made the ARK project responsible for the strategic sealift of German armed forces, which meant that further two ships had to be chartered. ARK FORWARDER was chartered in November 2006, but due to lack of candidates for ARK vessel number four an interim vessel FAST ARROW was chartered until TOR DANIA entered full time charter in november 2007.

The ARK project is now governed by a common German – Danish board called ARK Administration Board and the first meeting was held in February 2007.

The ARK vessels are first and foremost on call for NATO RESPONSE FORCE deployments. Beside of that they are of course on call for German and Danish strategic deployments.

The ARK vessels are used for military sealifts and in that connection they have until now transported materiel for NATO, Germany, United Kingdom, Belgium, France, Holland, Norway, Poland, Spain, Italy, Denmark and Slovakia. When they are not used for military sealifts, they are transferred to civilian employment.

The area of operations (AOO) boundary has until now been between Northern Norway, Falkland Islands, Tanzania, Pakistan and Iraq. Nevertheless the AOO is not beforehand restricted to a definite area.

Denmark participates with approx. 15 other nations in the coordination made at Movement Coordination Centre Europe, Eindhoven, Holland, where the military sealifts are coordinated.