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Global Role For Versatile RFA
Last year saw something of a departure for Royal Fleet Auxiliary
repair ship Diligence.
The vessel acted as mothership for the Third Mine Countermeasures
Squadron deployment to the Gulf - far from her normal operating
base in the South Atlantic.
And it was in the Falkland Islands that Diligence first took
on a defence role, for she started life as the MV Stena Inspector,
a multi-purpose support vessel for North Sea oil operations,
but was taken up from trade in May 1982 as a fleet repair
ship during the Falklands Campaign.
She was subsequently purchased from Stena (UK) Line by the
Ministry of Defence in October 1983 and entered the Clyde
Dock Engineering facility, where she was converted and military
features added, including a large workshop for hull and machinery
repairs, supply facilities, accommodation, armaments and magazines
and communications fits.
She is designed to provide forward repair and maintenance
facilities to ships and submarines operating away from their
home ports, so in addition to a variety of workshops she can
also provide, fuel, water and sullage reception.
Diligence is the Royal Navy's primary battle damage repair
unit, and is on short notice to react to developing situations
worldwide.
During the mining of the Striaits of Hormuz in 1987-88 she
provided forward support to the multinational minesweeping
operation based in the UAE.
While there she provided repair and towage to HMS Southampton
after collision damage, and in 1991 Diligence was again in
the Gulf during the war, where helped to repair American ships
damaged by mines.
One of the key features of the ship's design is her computer-assisted
dynamic positioning system which can keep the vessel static
in poor conditions, using the ship's range of thrusters and
the variable-pitch propeller.
She is fitted with a decompression chamber and has a helicopter
deck on the roof of her bridge.
As her hull is built to the highest ice class specification,
she can operate anywhere the Navy does.
She deployed to the Far East as submarine support ship during
Ocean Wave 1997, and following the Gulf deployment last year
with MCM3, she spent just two weeks back in the UK before
sailing to the Falklands to support RN units in the South
Atlantic.
She returned to Faslane in December and is now on her way
back to the Falklands.
Also known as Diligence...
A number of ships have been named Diligence - but many,
like the current RFA vessel, had other names as well.
A brigantine, originally HMS Intelligence, was renamed as
the first Diligence in 1692 and sold in 1708.
The second, a 6th Rate, was brought in 1709 and sold three
years later, to be followed by a sloop built in 1756.
As a fireship she became HMS Comet in 1779, and was sold in
the following year.
The fourth Diligence was the brig-sloop Spencer, renamed in
1795, but she was wrecked in the Caribbean in 1800.
In 1801 the sloop Union was bought and renamed as the fifth
Diligence, followed by the lugger Thistle, which became Diligence
in 1812.
The seventh was a 567-ton transport. Built in Ipswich in 1814,
she became a coal hulk in 1861 and was eventually sold in
1904.
Apart from a 33-ton dockyard hoy of 1859, the next scheduled
Diligence, a wooden screw sloop, was laid down in Chatham
in 1862 but cancelled the following year, so the eighth was
a destroyer depot ship, ex-Tabaristan, which was bought in
1913.
Matters become somewhat confusing at this point, as a 1906
tug already named Diligence was renamed Security in 1914,
and served as a drifter during the war.
The penultimate Diligence was a 4,023-ton Lend-Lease destroyer
repair vessel which came to Britain in 1944 but was returned
to the US Navy in 1946.
(Ship of the Month March 1999)
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