Previously uncharted areas of the Southern Ocean have been surveyed by personnel on board Royal Navy ice patrol ship HMS Protector. Using its multi-beam echo sounder the ship gathered data off the Sandwich Islands along areas of the Douglas Straits between South Thule and Cook Island for the UK Hydrographic Office to fill in missing data in the Admiralty Charts.
Type 23 frigate HMS Portland left on Monday from Davenport naval base for the Atlantic to provide on-going protection and reassurance to British interests in the region, which includes the Falklands and other South Atlantic islands.
Falkland Islands based Commander British Forces South Atlantic Islands, Air Commodore Russell La Forte CBE presented HMS Richmond with his personal Commendation in recognition of Distinguished Service in the region by the Type 23 Duke Class frigate during her Atlantic Patrol Tasking.
British Labor MP Jim Dobbin has filed an early day motion calling on the House of Commons to condemn the actions of the Spanish Guardia Civil crew that led to “an armed stand-off” with Royal Navy vessels in Gibraltar waters last week.
Britain's Ministry has plans to commission three new ocean-going offshore patrol vessels for the Royal Navy. The new ships will be built by BAE Systems at their shipyards on the Clyde in a deal that will sustain jobs in the UK’s warship-building industry, and will play a key role in counter-terrorism, counter-piracy and anti-smuggling operations.
HMS Richmond was on patrol in the South Georgia Maritime Zone at the end of September and came to anchor off Hope Point on the 27th for a three-day visit, reports the September edition of the South Georgia Newsletter.
Royal Navy’s newest ice patrol ship HMS Protector leaves Portsmouth this week on deployment to Antarctica, but she will be returning to Davenport, where she is to be based in the future.
Royal Navy HMS Lancaster has seized cannabis and cocaine with a street value of nearly £58 million while on operations in the Caribbean. The seizure took place over two incidents which came just days after each other, with Lancaster recovering cocaine weighing over 400 kilograms and almost 1.2 tons of marijuana.
The Royal Navy's former ice patrol ship HMS Endurance is to be scrapped after the Ministry of Defense decided the cost of repairing the vessel, which flooded off the coast of Chile in 2008, was too great.
A Scotland analysis paper on Defense, published on Tuesday, highlights the extent to which an independent Scotland would no longer benefit from the £34 billion annual UK defense budget, one of the largest in the world.