Location: Tambon Sattahip, Sattahip District, Chon Buri 20180, Thailand
Visited: 22 July 2022
Patrol Boat T.91 was laid down by the Royal Thai Naval Dockyard, Bangkok, on 12 July 1967, and commissioned on 12 August 1968. She was the first warship designed and built in Thailand in the modern era, and was the lead vessel for a class of nine similar vessels.
T.91 was 103 feet long, and displaced 128 tons (max). She was armed with a single 40mm bofors gun forward, a single 20mm GAM-B01 gun aft, and two 0.50 cal machine guns. She had a two-shaft MTU diesel engine installation, giving a top speed of 22 knots and a range of 973nm @ 19 knots. She had a crew of 28.
T.91 served for 51 years until her decommissioning on 26 September 2019. She was then preserved as a memorial, and mounted on a cradle in Dongtan Bay in front of the Royal Thai Fleet Officer's Club in Sattahip - about an hour south of Pattaya. I’m not totally sure of the status of the area she is in - we had to pass through a military check-point to get to her, but they were waving all and sundry through, and nobody seemed to have any problems with us walking around the ship taking photographs of her.
There was a ladder providing access to the ship, but it was blocked off, and there was no indication that she was ever going to be open to visitors going onboard.
The ship is in good condition, and obviously well maintained.
[Note due to variations in the transliteration of Thai characters, T.91 is sometimes referred to as To.91 or Tor 91]
