Ordered 1989 Commissioned 21 October 1993 Construction started 17 January 1992 Length 94 m Draft 4.4 m | Laid down 17 January 1992 Launched 23 August 1992 Displacement 2.6 million kg Beam 14 m | |
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The Vendémiaire is a light patrol frigate ("frégate de surveillance") of the French Marine Nationale. She is the fifth ship of the Floréal class, and is named after Vendémiaire, the first month of the Republican Calendar.
Operational history
Vendémiaire was deployed to East Timor as part of the Australian-led INTERFET peacekeeping taskforce from 20 September to 17 November 1999.
Vendémiaire and her sister ship Nivose are reasonably frequent visitors to Wellington.
The ship went on a tour of Communist Chinese ports in 2011, stopping at Canton, Chiang Tao, Hong Kong and Shanghai. It was opened to the public 17-4-11 in Hong Kong.
In October 2013 participated in the International Fleet Review 2013 in Sydney, Australia.
In 2015, following Cyclone Pam France ordered the Vendémiaire to sail from Nouméa, New Caledonia, to Vanuatu to conduct surveys along with aircraft from the island territory.
In August 2016 it visited Auckland on a goodwill mission and again in January 2017.