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I had the exact same thought. The 12,500 ton Drakensburg had two 8,160 HP (16,320 HP total) engines which could propel it at 20+ knots. This same amount of horsepower should have had no issue propelling the 2,800 to President Class Frigates to the stated 24 knots. I did some research and I'm fairly confident that Drakensburg was fitted with MAN B&W 12V 32/40 engines. These are commonly used on commercial ships and assuming the paperwork stated they were intended for such; they should have been able to import them despite the arms embargo. Similar to how the River Class Minehunters were ordered as research vessels for the department of transportation. As a side note, the 32/40 engine (Probably the 10-cylinder vice the 12) was also the main engine of the replenishment vessel HMNZS Endevour, commissioned in the same era as Drakensburg.The 10,000 nm range does sound excessive considering the original range was only 4,000. I skimmed through the "Three Frigates" book again and did find something that could explain the drastic increase in range. The first ship to undergo the modernization to add the hanger & flightdeck for the Wasp helicopter (President Krueger) had significant stability issues. This instability became progressively worse as the ships would burn fuel, as this not only made them ride higher in the water but raised the center of gravity as well. This was partially remedied by adding 40 tons of iron into the bilges of both President Krueger and President Steyn, but the vessels still could not burn below 30% of their fuel and maintain stability. President Pretorius finally corrected this issue by installing a compensated fuel system in addition to the added iron in the bilges. The compensated fuel system works by filling the fuel tanks with sea water as the fuel is used up. The book doesn't specify if only the existing fuel tanks were converted but the fuel capacity would have been significantly increased if any of the ballast tanks were converted to compensated fuel tanks as well. Perhaps the modernization had all of the ballast and fuel tanks on the remaining two vessels being converted to compensated fuel tanks.
I had the exact same thought. The 12,500 ton Drakensburg had two 8,160 HP (16,320 HP total) engines which could propel it at 20+ knots. This same amount of horsepower should have had no issue propelling the 2,800 to President Class Frigates to the stated 24 knots. I did some research and I'm fairly confident that Drakensburg was fitted with MAN B&W 12V 32/40 engines. These are commonly used on commercial ships and assuming the paperwork stated they were intended for such; they should have been able to import them despite the arms embargo. Similar to how the River Class Minehunters were ordered as research vessels for the department of transportation. As a side note, the 32/40 engine (Probably the 10-cylinder vice the 12) was also the main engine of the replenishment vessel HMNZS Endevour, commissioned in the same era as Drakensburg.
The 10,000 nm range does sound excessive considering the original range was only 4,000. I skimmed through the "Three Frigates" book again and did find something that could explain the drastic increase in range. The first ship to undergo the modernization to add the hanger & flightdeck for the Wasp helicopter (President Krueger) had significant stability issues. This instability became progressively worse as the ships would burn fuel, as this not only made them ride higher in the water but raised the center of gravity as well. This was partially remedied by adding 40 tons of iron into the bilges of both President Krueger and President Steyn, but the vessels still could not burn below 30% of their fuel and maintain stability. President Pretorius finally corrected this issue by installing a compensated fuel system in addition to the added iron in the bilges. The compensated fuel system works by filling the fuel tanks with sea water as the fuel is used up. The book doesn't specify if only the existing fuel tanks were converted but the fuel capacity would have been significantly increased if any of the ballast tanks were converted to compensated fuel tanks as well. Perhaps the modernization had all of the ballast and fuel tanks on the remaining two vessels being converted to compensated fuel tanks.
