RFA Mounts Bay (L3008)

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Career

Ordered:	19 November 2001
Laid down:
Launched:	9 April 2004
Commissioned:
Decommissioned:
Fate:
Struck:
General Characteristics
Displacement:	16 190 tonnes
Length:	176.6 m
Beam:	26.4 m
Draught:	5.1 m
Propulsion:	2 x Wartsila 8L26 engines, 2 x Wartsila 12V26 engines.
Speed:	18 knots
Range:	8000 nautical miles at 15 knots.
Complement:	59
Military Lift:	356 troops; 1200 Linear metres of vehicles (e.g. 32 Challenger 2 MBT's or 150 light trucks); 12 × 40 TEU or 24 × 24 TEU containers, 2 Landing Craft Vehicle and Personnel (LCVP) Mk.5 and 1 Landing Craft Utility (LCU) Mk 10; two Mexeflote powered rafts.
Armament:	None, but fitted to receive military weapons and self defence systems, including Phalanx CIWS.
Aircraft:	Twin spot flight deck with limited facilities to transport and operate Merlin, Chinook and V22 Osprey.
Motto:

RFA Mounts Bay (L3008) is a Bay class auxiliary landing ship dock (LSD(A)) of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. She is named for Mount's Bay in Cornwall

She was launched at the BAE Systems Naval Ships yard in Govan, Glasgow on April 9, 2004.

Mounts Bay is taking part in the Vela Deployment. The deployment will last from 11 September 2006 until 22 November 2006. In total approximately 3,000 British personnel and eleven ships of the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary will be involved. This deployment will see, for the first time, an Albion class vessel, Albion taking part in amphibious operations with a Bay class vessel. The deployment is divided into two phases,the first in local waters and the second in waters off of the coast of Sierra Leone. For this deployment she was fitted with the Bowman communications system. Mounts Bay demonstrated her lifting capability by transporting in excess of 130 vehicles, for the passage from the UK via Lisbon to Sierra Leone.