Royal Navy frigate HMS Iron Duke is due back home in Portsmouth tomorrow after a seven-month deployment during which she made one of the biggest drugs seizures in Service history.

Iron Duke has been on Atlantic Patrol Tasking (North), a patrol which includes the Caribbean.

And it was there that the ship, under the command of Cdr Phil Warwick, that the ship tracked and boarded the 11,500-tonne Panamanian-registered tanker mv Yalta in June, finding 3.3 tonnes of cocaine with an estimated street value of £250 million.

The frigate also detained a number of smaller ‘go-fast’ boats involved in smuggling drugs, and her Lynx helicopter spotted 288 cannabis plants ashore in the British Virgin islands, enabling the plants to be destroyed by law enforcement officers.

Iron Duke, which deployed at the end of January, also patrolled off the coast of Sierra Leone in West Africa before returning to the Caribbean.

In total she crossed the Atlantic four times, steaming 40,000 miles, and showed the White Ensign in 19 ports, including Barbados, St Lucia, Jamaica and Antigua.

She also took part in two search and rescue operations.

Cdr Warwick is soon to leave the ship for a new appointment as Fleet Operations Officer at Northwood in Middlesex.

Of his last operational deployment with the frigate, Cdr Warwick said: “Whether conducting drug-busting operations in the Caribbean, peacekeeping in Sierra Leone, or supporting defence diplomacy, Iron Duke has been ready for every challenge.

“The success of the deployment reflects on the professionalism and dedication of her people. I am very proud of what they have achieved and could not have asked for more.”