The Royal Navy’s newest warship sailed from her home port of Portsmouth for the first time on June 7. Type 45 destroyer HMS Duncan will spend seven days at sea putting her combat systems to the test and will also undertake general sea training.
Duncan is the sixth and last of the Navy’s new Type 45 air defence ships and made her first entry to Portsmouth in March when she was handed to the Navy from her builders BAE Systems.
Since then BAE Systems has carried out maintenance and prepared her for rigorous trials over the coming months.
Richard Dingley, Fleet Services Director said:
“Today marks a big milestone in HMS Duncan’s journey towards operational tasking and we are proud to have delivered her ready for the Royal Navy crew to take her to sea for the first time since she arrived in Portsmouth.
“Along with the team at BAE Systems I look forward to further supporting this fantastic platform and her sister ships on her future operational taskings wherever she may be in the world.”
HMS Duncan will continue with an intense period of trials off the south coast of the UK before being commissioned into the Navy’s fleet in September.
Britain’s Type 45 destroyers are the most advanced warships the nation has ever built and have already deployed operationally to the Middle East and across the Atlantic.
Their mission is to shield the Fleet from air attack using the Sea Viper missile which can knock targets out of the sky up to 70 miles away if necessary.
The Type 45s can also be used as general-purpose warships; they have huge flight decks to accommodate helicopters up to the size of a Chinook.
There’s enough space on board to host a Royal Marines detachment up to 60-men strong.
As for the ship’s company, they enjoy ‘creature comforts’ only dreamed of by their forebears: no sailor lives in a mess square for more than six people and there are no communal heads (toilets) or showers.
All Type 45s are based in Portsmouth and will serve until around 2040.
[mappress] Press release, June 10, 2013