From the magazine – Rapidly shifting geopolitics is driving sharp increases in defence spending as a renewed priority for many nations. With incidents at sea occurring from the Baltic to the Middle East, and from the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea, strategic use of existing naval assets has come into sharp focus. Asset life extensions are therefore key to maintaining a navy’s capability against a backdrop of increasing operational tempo.
This article appeared in SWZ|Maritime’s February 2026 issue. It was written by Yorick Spoelstra, Naval Business Director Europe at Lloyd’s Register and former officer in the Royal Netherlands Navy, www.lr.org.
Defence spending generally, and naval programmes in particular, have a sense of urgency about them that has not been seen for many decades. Earlier so-called peace dividends, when countries cut back on defence spending, especially after the end of the Cold War, are now being reversed. Large programmes building new classes of naval vessels are being launched by many nations at an increasing rate, typically focusing on frigate and corvette-sized vessels due to their operational flexibility and versatility.
Also read: SWZ|Maritime’s February 2026 issue: Designing the digital maritime future
Ageing assets, complex challenges
Yet, the complexity of designing and building naval ships, coupled with a lapse of shipbuilding experience and capacity in many nations, means long lead times before these programmes deliver vessels ready for service. The result is that many navies currently have fleets of ageing assets that are harder and more expensive to maintain whilst simultaneously facing an acceleration in the pace and number of operations. And demands and expectations continue to rise.
Many navies face a perfect storm of conflicting operational demands, and maintenance and procurement constraints. On the one hand, they have ageing assets in service, while on the other, they face procurement programmes that are not able to deliver new assets for several years yet. The ageing assets face increased challenges in their daily operations, and the systems they have on board may no longer be optimal, especially from a supportability perspective. This impacts asset operational readiness and sustainment, critical measures for any navy to successfully carry out their missions.
Furthermore, in-service naval ships require complex weapons and sensor upgrades, especially now due to the changing nature of warfare, notably because of the recent rise in the use of autonomous systems (drones) across air, surface and sub-surface domains.
But are the platforms capable of supporting these upgrades, and indeed, does their remaining service life merit the investment made?
Vessel condition
Lloyd’s Register’s (LR) naval advisory expertise is tackling three key areas of asset life extension. The first is through insight and assurance – gaining a fundamental understanding of the condition of a vessel and how it is currently maintained and how its readiness and availability can then be best maintained; a process oriented towards future operations.
Apart from the actual physical condition, such as identifying areas of potential structural fatigue, this could include a comprehensive assessment of the maintenance history on the ship, for example, to identify problematic equipment or systems and how maintenance of them has been managed. If there are any potentially unreliable systems or components, LR can recommend alterations, upgrades or replacements, or perhaps something as simple as a revised maintenance strategy.
The initial structural assessment is completed to ensure that the capacity and integrity of the structure and the fabric of the vessel are suitable not just for current operations, but for potential future operations, including review of potential environmental changes. This process identifies fatigue and stress critical locations, relevant failure modes and operability susceptibility alongside the condition of the fabric and the weight analysis.
LR has been supporting this approach for more than fifty years and has developed extensive models for numerical modelling of finite element analysis (FEA) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for both surface vessels and submarine structures. This scope is integrated with detailed risk analysis, explosion analysis and autonomous systems experience. The basis of functional data analysis (FDA) can be leveraged to provide a high level screening approach (FDA 1) for more simplistic areas of structural connection through to FDA 3, which provides a full spectral direct calculation procedure coupled with finite element analysis.
Typically, FDA 2 is more commonly utilised on LR projects as we have established an extensive library of FDA 3 analysis that can be leveraged to minimise the engineering effort. The FDA 2 process is also able to accommodate non-standard design details, can screen a large number of connection details efficiently and outputs can feed crack growth assessments in accordance with BS7910 or critical engineering assessments. These models are then utilised in the operational phase to allow for fast response times to support in-service structural maintenance.
Also read: Dutch navy gets new fleet, but will have to wait for it
Impact of obsolence
The next priority is to assess and mitigate the impact of obsolescence by identifying high-risk components or equipment and evaluating their long-term operability. LR’s experts assess reliability, availability and maintainability of components and systems as they age, on the lookout for issues that could become points of failure and then determining their probability of failure and how best to offset the risks involved.
The process often requires talking to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to investigate obsolescence timelines and system alternatives or upgrades that are available today, or within the foreseeable future. Top priorities include the assessment of system resilience, the identification and prioritisation of high-risk components with limited or no technical or commercial support, and the alignment of technical obsolescence risks with forward-looking capability and investment planning.
Navies obviously already have a very good understanding of their assets because they’ve been operating them for a long time. But the question is ‘what do you do about it – how do you actually solve the problem?’ so that an ageing asset can still deliver the operational readiness and availability the navies need. And that sometimes means going back to the supply chain and understanding what can be replaced, whether components or entire systems, and then incorporating that change into a navy’s supply chain going forward.
Lifecycle scenarios
The third element of LR’s assurance package is a thorough investment appraisal based on modelling remaining lifecycle scenarios. This typically involves the cost-benefit analysis of replacement versus extension options and the development of long-term investment frameworks for senior decision-makers.
The LR approach involves strategically reducing operating expenses while maintaining or improving performance and service quality. Dependent on the asset in question, the approach is tailored on areas of highest asset risk and greatest reward, identified via a heatmap of all critical areas. It is key to understand the impact of data quality and availability so that the correct outcomes are reached and not compromised by historical challenges.
Areas of focus can be procedural, operational or innovation. With regular benchmarking of maintenance and asset systems, key areas of cost savings can easily be identified and actioned, with back up and evidence from data analytics. This coupled with vendor and contract management to not only leverage volume reductions, but also to reduce administrative burdens. A focus on procedural improvement can uncover cost savings opportunities or workflow inefficiencies, which can be improved by applying an operational efficiency mindset. Innovation during life extension may seem challenging, but the opportunity to minimise repetitive tasks and to reduce utility costs by implementing energy-efficient technologies can spark a number of continuous improvement initiatives that support further reduction in operating expenses driven by the onboard team.
Investment prioritisation is a key requirement, as is the alignment of capital spending plans with operational and regulatory requirements. This brings into focus the question “How much is a fully operational day at sea with an asset that would otherwise have been unavailable worth to a navy?”
The Dutch perspective
The Royal Netherlands Navy will replace its entire fleet in the next ten years. Extensive newbuilding programmes have been announced or are already in progress. Life extension programmes can help the Dutch navy maintain a capable and modern fleet by upgrading existing vessels.
For example, the HNLMS Van Speijk, a Karel Doorman-class frigate, is undergoing a life extension programme that includes updated sensors, weapons systems, propulsion upgrades and improved combat management systems. HNLMS van Speijk was “mothballed” – or in laid-up status – and is now being revived into service. This allows the ship to remain operationally relevant and interoperable with NATO forces, extending its service life while saving costs and ensuring continued naval readiness during the transition to newer frigate classes.
Also read: SWZ|Maritime’s September 2025 issue: Royal Netherlands Navy in transition
Extensive knowledge
Backed by experience with a wide range of different types of naval combatants and auxiliaries that operate in some of the world’s harshest marine environments, LR has a deep understanding of the conditions in which navies operate and can bring lessons learned from a much broader cross-section of operation than a single navy would typically possess. There is also the extensive knowledge gained from the classification of commercial assets.
LR has provided naval advisory and classification services to a significant number of navies worldwide. The classification society was also instrumental in setting up the International Naval Safety Association (INSA) and manages its secretariat today – an association that has developed the internationally recognised Naval Ship and Naval Submarine Codes that have been adopted by many navies.
Picture: The HMAS Choules of the Australian Navy underwent a life extension programme together with Lloyd’s Register (photo Lloyd’s Register).
