Nicaraguan Navy commissions two more Damen Stan Patrol 4207 vessels.

The Nicaraguan Naval Force has inducted two new Damen Shipyards Stan Patrol 4207 vessels into active service. The vessels were activated at the Naval Force's facilities at the port of El Bluff located the country's Caribbean coastline after having been sailed from Damen's shipyards in the Netherlands under the command of Nicaraguan crews.

Stan Patrol 4207 (Picture source: Damen)

The two new vessels are designated the No. 409 Soberanía I (Sovereignty I) and No. 411 Soberanía II. Nicaragua ordered the 42-foot vessels in December of 2017. The Naval Force plans to utilize the boats to safeguard the continental shelf of the country and conduct surveillance and interdiction duties.

The Dutch shipbuilding Damen Group designs and manufactures a wide variety of vessels, including a range of related patrol vessels known generally as the Damen Stan Patrol Vessels. Their design includes a four-digit code, where the first two digits are the vessel's length, in metres, and the second two digits are its width. Over a dozen nations have classes of vessels based on the Damen Stan 4207 patrol vessel design, which are 42 metres (138 ft) long and 7 metres (23 ft) wide. The United States Coast Guard's Sentinel-class cutters, based on the Damen Stan 4708 patrol vessel design, are 47 metres (154 ft) long and 8 metres (26 ft) wide.

Rather than design vessels that were strictly for naval use, the underlying Damen Stan patrol vessel designs do not include weapons nor a sensor suite. The designs have been adapted for constabulary duties, and for fishery and environmental patrols. According to Sanjay Badri-Maharaj, of the -Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, described how adding an autocannon and military-class sensor suite to the USCG's Sentinel-class boosted its cost per vessel from $20 million USD to $65 million.

In recent years Damen has developed Stan patrol vessels based on their Sea Axe bow design. The Stan 4207 design vessels are 42.8-metre (140 ft) patrol vessels. They are 7.1 metres (23 ft) wide and can travel at 22 knots (41 km/h; 25 mph). The Stan 4708 are 46.8 metres (154 ft) long, 8.11 metres (26.6 ft) wide, have a maximum speed of 23.8 knots (44.1 km/h; 27.4 mph).