HMS Orkney (P299)
History | |
---|---|
United Kingdom | |
Name: | HMS Orkney |
Namesake: | Orkney Islands |
Builder: | Hall, Russell & Company, Aberdeen |
Yard number: | 972[1] |
Launched: | 29 June 1976 |
Sponsored by: | Lady Troup, wife of Flag Officer Scotland and Northern Ireland |
Commissioned: | Royal Navy February 1977 |
Fate: | Sold to Trinidad and Tobago October 2000 |
Trinidad and Tobago | |
Name: | TTS Nelson |
Identification: | Pennant number: CG20 |
Fate: | In service |
General characteristics | |
Class & type: | Island-class patrol vessel |
Displacement: | 1,250 long tons (1,270 t) standard |
Length: | 195 ft (59 m) o/a |
Beam: | 36 ft (11 m) |
Draft: | 14 ft (4.3 m) |
Propulsion: | 1 shaft, 1 diesel, 4,380 hp (3,266 kW) |
Speed: | 16 knots (30 km/h) |
Range: | 11,000 nautical miles (20,000 km) at 11 knots (20 km/h) |
Complement: | 35 |
Armament: | 1 × Bofors 40 mm gun Mark III |
HMS Orkney was an Island-class patrol vessel of the Royal Navy. She is now TTS Nelson of the Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard.
History
Orkney was built by Hall, Russell & Company in Aberdeen, launched on 29 June 1976 and commissioned in February of the following year. She was modelled on the ocean-going fishery protection vessels Jura and Westra . In 1993 she became involved in a fishing dispute with France around the Channel Islands.
Paid off in April 1999, she was laid up at Portsmouth Dockyard.[2] Following decommissioning, her bell, name board and honours board were presented to Orkney Islands Council.[3] She was sold to the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force and renamed TTS Nelson.
Service
As part of the Fishery Protection Squadron, along with her sister ships, she patrolled the waters around the UK (sometimes also Gibraltar) providing protection for Britain's fishing grounds, as well as providing oil and gas platform protection.
In 1978, Orkney coordinated the clean-up operation after the tanker Christos Bitas ran aground in the Irish Sea.[4] She helped co-ordinate the search for survivors from the trawler Ocean Monarch off Fair Isle, in 1980 and recovered many of the bodies when the freighter Radiant Med sank off Guernsey in 1984.[4]