Scene on the Sound: A quieter week for ships - but not for the weather!
October 23, 2026
The German anti-aircraft frigate FGS Hessen has continued here training sessions under FOST[1] and, very sensibly, came into Devonport on Thursday evening before Storm Austen[2]. Two of the RN’s remaining five Type 23 frigates have been in and around the Sound – HM Ships Sutherland and Somerset[3].
One, slightly surprising visitor, was the German cruise ship Amera. Amera was launched in 1988 as the Royal Viking Sun for the Royal Viking Line. She retained her name when Royal Viking were taken over by Cunard (part of the Carnival Corporation) in 1994. Carnival transferred her to Seabourn Cruises in 1999, when she became the Seabourn Sun and then in 2002, to the Holland America Line as the Prinsendam. In 2019, she was sold by Carnival to Phoenix Reisen, her present German operators. This saga of changing names, shipping lines (aka brands) and owners is not uncommon in the cruise ship market.
Amera is a smaller cruise ship and can carry up to 840 passengers. As is, in a way, to be expected, she sailed from Plymouth in the late afternoon, rather than the early evening – about an hour to 90 minutes earlier than cruise ships usually depart. This timing, perhaps, reflects the usual German custom of eating their evening meal early. (Wikipedia says that the usual German evening meal is taken between 1800 and 1900 – just occasionally as late as 2000.)
She is presently alongside in Bordeaux.
Finally, on the naval front, the ex-HMS Iron Duke was towed away to Portsmouth on Monday 19th before disposal five days after her sister ship, HMS Richmond made the same journey.
Finally, Royal Research Ship (RRS) Sir David Attenborough has been in Devonport again. She arrived early on Wednesday morning and was due to sail next day. She is now due to depart tomorrow (Saturday 24th). It is possible that she was been waiting for Storm Austen to pass, but equally, as HMS Protector is never likely to go south to the Antarctic again, I suspect that some of the stores for the British outposts in the Antarctic may have been transferred to her.
[1] Flag Officer Sea Training.
[2] Not named after the novelist, as most of us probably assumed, but after Austen H Nagle, the first director of the Irish Meteorological Service. And Storm Boelo was named by the Dutch Met Office. It is not named after the character who was one of Jabba the Hutt’s thugs in the Star Wars franchise either, but is a nearly extinct Dutch first name with old Germanic roots, meaning brave or strong.
[3] In fact the two youngest of the class. The other three (of the original sixteen) still in RN service are HM Ships St Albans, Portland and Kent.
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