UK — Diamond set to begin next stage of sea trials

Dia­mond, the third of the Roy­al Navy’s for­mi­da­ble new air defence destroy­ers, has been for­mal­ly hand­ed over to the MOD in a cer­e­mo­ny at Portsmouth Naval Base.

Dia­mond is the third of six new air defence war­ships being built for the Roy­al Navy Source: LA(Phot) Kyle Heller, Min­istry of Defence, UK Click to enlarge

Diamond’s cap­tain and crew sailed past the Round Tow­er and into their home port for the first time yes­ter­day morn­ing, Wednes­day 22 Sep­tem­ber 2010, ready to begin sea tri­als that will test both them and the ves­sel to the lim­it before she is declared operational. 

The Type 45 destroy­er set sail from BAE Sys­tems’ ship­yard on the Clyde on Sat­ur­day, bid­ding farewell to the con­struc­tion shed for the last time and to the thou­sands of proud work­ers who built her. 

Head of Destroy­ers, Com­modore Steve Brun­ton, accept­ed Dia­mond on behalf of the MOD’s Defence Equip­ment and Support. 

He said: 

“It is a huge priv­i­lege to accept this mag­nif­i­cent ship on behalf of the MOD, hot on the heels of HMS Dar­ing and HMS Daunt­less being com­mis­sioned into ser­vice with the Navy. 

“With five ships in the water — one in ser­vice, two in MOD hands and two more on con­trac­tor tri­als — 2010 has been an extreme­ly busy year on the Type 45 pro­gramme already and is still to see the last of the class, Dun­can, launched down the slip­way into the Clyde in the next few weeks.” 

The ship’s com­pa­ny and BAE Sys­tems’ employ­ees stood to atten­tion in a dia­mond for­ma­tion on the flight deck to salute the White Ensign being raised as Angus Holt, UK Pro­grammes Direc­tor at BAE Sys­tems’ Sur­face Ships divi­sion, trans­ferred respon­si­bil­i­ty for the ship to Com­modore Brunton. 

Diamond’s Com­mand­ing Offi­cer, Com­man­der Ian Clarke, said: 

“It is an enor­mous respon­si­bil­i­ty to com­mand a ship with Diamond’s cut­ting-edge. The ship per­formed mag­nif­i­cent­ly dur­ing its ear­ly sea trials. 

“I am sup­port­ed by a tru­ly ded­i­cat­ed team and togeth­er we are keen to progress to the next stage, trans­form­ing Dia­mond into an effec­tive front line war­ship, ready for oper­a­tions any­where in the world.” 

As well as her world-beat­ing air defence capa­bil­i­ty — the Sea Viper mis­sile sys­tem can engage up to ten tar­gets, one of the Type 45’s great­est assets is their versatility. 

Anti-pira­cy, anti-smug­gling activ­i­ties and sur­veil­lance oper­a­tions are among just some of the roles she will be able to per­form as well as high inten­si­ty war-fighting. 

Her large flight deck can oper­ate a range of heli­copters and she has addi­tion­al capac­i­ty for 60 peo­ple — enabling her to con­tribute in sup­port of land oper­a­tions or human­i­tar­i­an dis­as­ter relief. 

Dia­mond was launched by Lady Suzie Johns, wife of Vice Admi­ral Sir Adri­an Johns, on the Clyde in 2007. Since then she has been fit­ted out inter­nal­ly and under­gone two sets of sea tri­als which were com­plet­ed in June 2010. 

Press release
Min­istry of Defence, UK 

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