South Africa's four ill-fated R12 billion corvettes are now likely all to be delivered up to a year late.

According to a provisional schedule provided to South African subcontractors, the first ship, the SAS Amatola, will arrive in South Africa in about October, nine months after its contractual delivery date.

The Amatola was the vessel afflicted with faulty cable as reported in the Mail and Guardian in January. At that stage spokesman for the German Frigate Consortium, Sven Moeller, claimed the problem was "not serious" and predicted a delay of about a month.

This week, Moeller refused point blank to comment on the delays.

Navy sources say the entire communication cabling, more than 100km in length, has had to be ripped out.

More puzzling, however, is the projected delay of ships two, three and four.

According to the schedule, sea trials for the second corvette were meant to end in June/July 2004. Now they will end only in June 2005. In other words final hand-over to the navy will be almost a year late.

The conclusion of sea trials for the third corvette has been postponed from September 2004 to September 2005 and the corresponding date for the fourth vessel has been shifted from January 2005 to December 2005.

This week the Ministry of Defence was also tight-lipped about the delays. The ministry declined to say if contractual penalties for late delivery were being implemented. The ministry would only say: "The Department of Defence is still awaiting a formal new delivery schedule from the contractor and will only comment after receipt of this and due consideration of all implications arising from it."

The projected delays of the three ships not affected by the initial cabling defect suggests that rumours of other problems bedeviling the ship's highly advanced water-jet propulsions system - never before attempted on a military vessel of this size - may be well founded. Other reports have also suggested problems with elements of the combat system.

With acknowledgements to Sam Sole and the Mail & Guardian.