On Sept. 6, 2018 Alexandria Shipyard has launched the second Gowind 2500 multi-mission corvette of the Egyptian Navy, ENS Port Said (976), during a ceremony at its facility in Alexandria, Egypt. Port Said is the outcome of the €1bn contract that Egypt has signed with DCNS (now Naval Group) to buy four Gowind 2500-ton corvettes with an option for two more. Three of the corvettes are to be built locally by Alexandria Shipyard with a technology transfer agreement. In September 2016, Naval Group launched the first Egyptian Gowind corvette ENS El Fateh (971) at the Lorient naval shipyard in France. The Egyptian Navy took delivery of the vessel in September 2017, 3 years after the order was placed. The ceremony was inaugurated with a speech of the commander of the Egyptian Naval Forces “Vice Admiral /Ahmad Khaled” and said that “the warship is aimed to enhance Egypt’s naval capabilities in the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, ensure safe maritime navigation and bolster the security of the Suez Canal”. “Naval Group is proud to be present at the launching ceremony and to celebrate the strength of the long-term partnership with the Egyptian Navy. To deepen this commitment, Naval Group created the subsidiary Alexandria Naval for Maintenance and Industry in June 2018,” the Group said. The launching of the Port Said corvette shows the capabilities of the Alexandria shipyard and celebrates the rise in competences of the ASY team which is now able to build commercial vessels as well as state-of-art military vessels. It is worth mentioning that it took 650,000 man hours of work to build the corvette, in addition to 110,000 hours to support the construction process and a total of 2,100 Egyptian engineers and technicians were involved. The Egyptian Gowind 2500 has a total length of 102 meters, a width of 16 meters, displacement of 2600- ton and a maximum speed of 25 knots. Range at 15 knots is 3 700 nautical miles. Including a helicopter detachment, crew is 65 persons.