Focus Shifts to Fish
The Hunt class vessel is a versatile warship – and
the past few months have allowed HMS Middleton to illustrate
the type’s range of capabilities.
After returning from Exercise Argonaut 2000, 2001 began with
Middleton part of the ‘On Call Force’, a four-strong
group at between two to five days notice to deploy for live
operations.
While maintaining operational capability, availability of
equipment and planning capacity in an already tight schedule,
the ship managed to squeeze in port visits around the UK,
including Swansea, Liverpool, Glasgow and Cork.
Middleton also carried out route survey operations off the
south and west coasts of the UK minehunting along specified
important sea lanes, sharpening essential skills.
There followed a Joint Maritime Course off Scotland, where
the ship operated with Canadian, Dutch, French and German
units, before Middleton returned to Portsmouth for some maintenance
and a change of focus.
When she sailed again at the end of April she was beginning
a 12-month attachment to the Fishery Protection Squadron,
patrolling fishing grounds up to 200 miles off-shore, with
visits to Swansea and Cherbourg.
Port visits in recent weeks included Brixham and Lowestoft
attracting thousands of visitors at fish festivals, Weymouth,
Newlyn (where she was guardship for the festival), and, perhaps
most importantly, a seven-hour transit of the Manchester
Ship Canal to allow her to tie up at Salford Quays, close
to her affiliated town of Middleton in Rochdale.
Greater Manchester Radio hosted a breakfast show on board,
interviewing members of the ship’s company, and a cheque
for £450, mainly raised through the efforts of OMs
Whorton and Root, was handed to the Alderman Kay special
needs school.
Middleton, the seventh of the glass-reinforced plastic (GRP)
Hunt-class mine countermeasures vessels, can conduct both
minesweeping and minehunting operations.
The ship employs towed wire and influence sweeps to destroy
certain types of mine, and a remote-controlled submersible
to destroy the particular type of mine located and identified
by her powerful sensors.
(Ship of the Month October 2001)
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