SEOUL - SOUTH Korea's navy on Wednesday launched an advanced patrol boat named after a victim of a 2002 clash with North Korea, and said the new craft 'can deter any enemy provocation' at sea.

The 440-tonne Yoon Young-Ha, commissioned at a southern naval base at Jinhae, is the first of around 20 patrol boats to be delivered by 2015.

It is named after a South Korean patrol boat commander who was killed in a 2002 clash with the North's boats in the Yellow Sea.

'With the commissioning of the Yoon Young-Ha the navy now possesses enormous power that can deter any enemy provocation at sea,' Admiral Jung Ok-Geun said in a statement.

Developers said the ship can simultaneously detect and hit a multiple number of targets with a high-tech combat system involving missiles and guns.

The two Koreas have remained technically at war since their 1950-1953 conflict ended in a fragile armistice.

Their disputed border in the Yellow Sea was the scene of bloody skirmishes in 1999 and again in 2002, when six South Korean sailors were among the dead.

North Korea refuses to recognise the so-called Northern Limit Line drawn up by the US-led UN Command after the war.

The new ship, with a top speed of 40 knots, is equipped with an integrated combat system similar to the Aegis target detection system being fitted on the nation's new destroyers.

The system on the patrol boat allows it to simultaneously detect up to 100 aerial and surface targets and engage multiple targets at the same time. The Aegis system has a larger detection capacity.

In October North Korea's naval command accused South Korean ships of violating its waters in the Yellow Sea and warned that escalating tensions could lead to a clash. -- AFP