Scene on the Sound: October 16 2026 - a very international week

By The Captain

Firstly, an apology – last week I was wrong about the RN’s Type 45 being briefly in the Sound on last Thursday (Oct 8).   It was, in fact, HMS Dragon, just returned from 7 months on operations in the Med (prompted by the Iranian drone attack on RAF Akrotiri, in Cyprus).  Dragon was here to clear Customs, so that families could come onboard when she returned to her base port of Portsmouth.  HM Ships always have to clear Customs on returning from abroad – even after the Falklands War, when my ship, HMS Cardiff, stopped briefly off Portland for a (very cursory) Customs check before returning to Portsmouth.

This week has been another busy and very international one for warships in the Sound. 

We had:

The Indian Navy’s frigate INS Trishul until Thursday afternoon, when she departed, probably up Channel to continue her ‘Showing the Flag’ deployment.

The Portuguese submarine NRP Tridente sailed on Tuesday, probably to join the multi-national exercises in the Plymouth areas, but we won’t know if this was just a fleeting visit until she reappears here, or doesn’t, as the case may be.  All nations keep their submarine’s movements classified when possible.

The German and Norwegian frigates FGS Hessen and HNoMS Otto Sverdrup have been training all week.  Hessen is due back in Devonport for the weekend and Otto Sverdrup may have gone on her way.   

And RFA Proteus, the seabed defence ship, has been out and in and out again. 

There have been two of the Navy’s Duke-class frigates around – one for the very last time.  HMS Sutherland has been working in the area most of the week and her (only two year older) sistership, the ex-HMS Richmond has been towed away to Portsmouth, where the Disposal and Reserve Ships Organisation will strip her of any equipment that can be reused or is still classified or of military significance.  Sometime next year, she will probably be towed away to be scrapped in somewhere like the Aliaga Ship Recycling Yard near Izmir, Turkey.

Probably the most significant naval movement of the week was when HMS Protector, the RN’s one and only ice-strengthened ship, was towed into Plymouth by three tugs on Tuesday morning. 

HMS Protector is now 25 years old and was leased as a ‘temporary’ measure when her predecessor, HMS Endurance, was damaged after hitting an iceberg in the Antarctic.  After three years, she was bought and has remained the RN’s ice patrol vessel ever since.  But as we see from the attempts to run the RN’s frigate force on and on, hulls and machinery wear out, after which the ship is no longer worth refitting or repairing – “New Wine in Old Bottles…”.  It seems that the same thing has happened here and HMS Protector has probably sailed under the White Ensign for the last time.  The MoD says that her replacement will be in the (not yet funded) Defence Investment Plan.  That does not fill the Captain with hope!

The Captain is a real Royal Navy-retired Captain, who writes exclusively for The Beagle about maritime matters in the Ocean City.