To ensure that they remain fully prepared to deal with any security incident off the coast of Somalia, Spanish Marines on board ESPS Galicia conduct regular force protection training at sea.

The training includes weapon firings and radio communications exercises to ensure that the ship is ready to respond to a potential sea-borne attack.

Commissioned into the Spanish Navy in 1998, ESPS Galicia is a Landing Platform Dock (LPD) ship.  She has a displacement of 13,000 tonnes, a large helicopter deck and an 885-square metre ‘well deck’ to hold her large landing craft.

She has been deployed off the coast of Somalia as EU NAVFOR’s counter-piracy flagship since February 2017.  She will commence her return home to her base port of Rota in Spain at the end of July this year.