ARA Bahía San Blas is an amphibious cargo ship of the Argentine Navy, capable of unloading landing craft, troops, vehicles and cargo. She is the first Argentine Navy ship to bear the name of San Blas Bay of in the south of Buenos Aires Province.

Design

Bahía San Blas (B-4) is one of three Costa Sur-class cargo ship cargo ships ordered by the Argentine Navy in 1975, designed and built by the Argentine Príncipe, Menghi y Penco shipyard, at Buenos Aires, Argentina. The design is optimised for Patagonic coastal service. Bahía San Blas has a steel hull and the superstructure at the stern, with a single mast and a single funnel atop, behind the bridge; the cargo area is located in the middle of the ship and three Liebherr cranes serve the three holds, one each. She has a bulk cargo capacity of 9,856 m3 or 6,300 tons (e.g.: coal, cereals, live cattle), and can carry up to 140 containers. Bahía San Blas is powered by two 6-cylinder Sulzer 6 ZL 40/48 marine diesel engines of 3200 hp each, driving two variable-pitch propellers; with a maximum speed of 16.5 kn.

History

The ship is a Costa Sur-class cargo ship vessel built at Astilleros Príncipe, Menghi y Penco at Buenos Aires in 1978 entering service on November of that year in the Transport Maritime service of the Argentine Navy. The other ships of the class are ARA Canal Beagle and ARA Cabo de Hornos. In 1991 she was deployed to the Persian Gulf during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm carrying humanitarian aid and providing logistic support to the Argentine warships in the area. In 1992 Bahía San Blas transported back from the Gulf of Fonseca the four Baradero-class patrol boats used under United Nations mandate ONUCA. After the retirement of ARA Cabo San Antonio, Bahía San Blas became the main vessel for use by the Argentine Marines receiving several modifications. Since 2004, an Argentine contingent was deployed to Haiti under MINUSTAH mandate and Bahía San Blas has been used for logistic support making several voyages to the Caribbean island. As of late 2016, Bahía San Blas remains in service with the Argentine Navy.

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