HMS Leeds Castle (P258)
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| Career |  |
|---|---|
| Ordered: | 8 August 1980 |
| Laid down: | 18 October 1979 |
| Launched: | 29 October 1980 |
| Commissioned: | 27 October 1981 |
| Decommissioned: | 8 August 2005 |
| Fate: | Awaiting Disposal |
| Struck: | |
| General Characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 1,427 tonnes |
| Length: | 81 m (266 ft) |
| Beam: | 11.5 m (37 ft) |
| Draught: | 3.6 m (11 ft) |
| Propulsion: | 2 × Ruston 12RKC 5640 hp (4.2 MW) diesels, 2 shafts |
| Speed: | 18 knot (33 km/h) max, 12 knot (22 km/h) cruise |
| Range: | |
| Complement: | 45 (Temporary accommodation for an additional twenty-five Royal Marines) |
| Armament: | 30 mm BMARC cannon 4 × L7 General Purpose Machine Guns |
| Aircraft: | One Westland Lynx or Sea King |
| Motto: | |
The second HMS Leeds Castle is a Castle-class patrol ship built by Hall Russell Co. Ltd of Aberdeen, Scotland. She was launched in October 1980 and commissioned into the Royal Navy the following August. She was involved in the 1982 Falklands War, operating between the British territories of Ascension Island, South Georgia, and the Falkland Islands as a dispatch vessel.
Since that conflict, the Leeds Castle has spent much time performing fishery protection duties around the United Kingdom, as-well as being used as a guard-ship in the Falkland Islands. In 2000, Leeds Castle underwent an eight-month refit, returning to the fleet in early 2001.
On August 8, 2005 she returned for the final time to her home base of Portsmouth to be decommissioned after a 24-year career having finished her final deployment as a patrol vessel based in the Falkland Islands. She was relieved in that role by her sister ship HMS Dumbarton Castle (commissioned in 1982) who will likely serve in that role until being replaced in 2007 by the new HMS Clyde.
See HMS Leeds Castle for other ships of the name.
| Castle-class patrol vessel |
|
Leeds Castle | Dumbarton Castle |
| List of patrol vessels of the Royal Navy |
