MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Royal Navy patrol ship HMS Medway makes first port call at Chile's Punta Arenas

According to the Austral Port Authority (Epaustral), the ship will be handled during its stay at the Arturo Prat pier by a local agency

The British Royal Navy's patrol vessel HMS Medway (P223) docked on Sunday morning at Punta Arenas, in Chile's Magallanes and Chilean Antarctic Region, on its first visit to the port. The stop, for resupply, is due to last until Wednesday, July 8.

According to the Austral Port Authority (Epaustral), the ship will be handled during its stay at the Arturo Prat pier by a local agency. The Medway is a Batch 2 River-class offshore patrol vessel, built by BAE Systems in Glasgow and commissioned in 2019, measuring 90 meters in length and displacing about 2,000 tons.

The vessel carries out surveillance duties in the South Atlantic. In January 2026 it relieved HMS Forth as the Royal Navy's permanent patrol ship around the Falklands, after nearly six years of deployment by its sister ship — a handover MercoPress reported at the time. Its routine tasks include fishery protection within the islands' exclusive economic zone and maritime security operations extending to South Georgia.

In recent months, the Medway has taken part in deployments beyond the islands. In April it transported British Army paratroopers to South Georgia for sovereignty patrols, and in May it sailed to Tristan da Cunha to deliver medical personnel and supplies over a possible health case on that remote South Atlantic territory.

The stop again positions Punta Arenas as a support point for British ships operating in the far south. The Falklands lie more than 12,000 kilometers from the United Kingdom, requiring an extensive logistics chain to sustain the naval deployment, with the Mount Pleasant base serving as the main hub on the islands.

The case revives an underlying contrast in Chile's position. Chile has backed calls in diplomatic forums for Argentina and the United Kingdom to resume sovereignty negotiations, in line with the regional stance. At the same time, its southern ports provide services to British units operating in the area. Neither the Chilean government nor British authorities have officially linked the port call to that dispute, which the parties treat as an unresolved bilateral matter.