The ship that gave her name to a class of the hi-tech minehunters has bowed out after 15 years service.

Just four months after returning from a challenging deployment across the Atlantic, mine countermeasures vessel HMS Sandown was greeted by fine autumn skies as she made her final entry to Portsmouth Harbour under the White Ensign.

Flying the traditional decommissioning pennant, Sandown was brought to her final berth in the dockyard by Commanding Officer Lt Cdr Jonathan Cooke, rounding off a busy 2004.

The ship’s four-month tour of duty in American waters with three other British MCMVs, under the wing of the Second Mine Countermeasures Squadron (or MCM2), was part of a series of spring exercises with Allied nations under the title Aurora 04, held off the coast of North Carolina.

It was the first transatlantic deployment by British minehunters in eight years, and after skirting around icebergs in fog on the way out, the squadron was battered by a vicious storm on the way back home in July – a total of around 8,000 miles.

Among Sandown’s final acts was a publicity drive for the Royal Navy in East Anglia when she visited Great Yarmouth for the resort’s maritime festival.

Pupils from Lynn Grove VA High School were invited to tour the 484-tonne warship, and members of her ship’s company gave a presentation on today’s RN and Royal Marines in the town hall.

Lt Cdr Cooke said: “I am delighted to bring HMS Sandown to Great Yarmouth and hope that the pupils enjoy this opportunity to visit the ship, have a good look around and meet the ship’s company.”

Launched in 1988 by the Duchess of Gloucester at Vosper Thornycroft in Southampton – which built all 11 subsequent warships of the Sandown class – the ship entered service the following year.

Her glass reinforced plastic (GRP) hull and draught of just 2.2 metres, plus the NAUTIS M (Naval Autonomous Tactical Information System) mine warfare command system – which assimilates information from the ship’s sensors and presents it to the Operations Room and bridge - helped make HMS Sandown and her sisters among the most advanced minehunters in the world.

The ship’s unusual propulsion system, using a system of vertical blades on carousels in conjunction with bow-thrusters, can be used to position the ship with a great deal of precision – vital when dealing with suspicious underwater objects.

Sandown is one of three ships of her class to be paid off under the Navy’s 2004 shake-up, the others being HMS Bridport, normally based in Faslane but currently in dock in Portsmouth, and HMS Inverness, also based at Clyde Naval Base.

Sandown was the third ship to bear the name in the Royal Navy, following a paddle steamer built in 1916 and sold in 1922, and the second was a 1934 ship requisitioned on the outbreak of war, and which served at both Dunkirk and the Normandy Landings.