HMS Marlborough (F233)

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Career

Ordered:	September 1986
Laid down:	27 October 1987
Launched:	21 January 1989
Commissioned:	14 June 1991
Decommissioned:	8 July 2005
Fate:	Sold to Chile
Struck:
General Characteristics
Displacement:	4,900 tonnes
Length:	133 m (463 ft)
Beam:	16.1 m (52.9 ft)
Draught:	7.3 m
Propulsion:	CODLAG (Combined Diesel-eLectric And Gas) 2 Rolls-Royce Spey boost gas-turbines 4 Paxman Valenta diesel engines 2 GEC electric motors
Speed:	28 knots, 15 knots on diesel-electric
Range:	7,800 miles at 15 knots
Complement:	185
Armament:	2 ASuW Harpoon quad launchers Vertical launch system Sea Wolf missiles BAE 4.5 inch (110 mm) Mk 8 gun 2 Oerlikon 30 mm guns 4 Sting Ray torpedo tubes Seagnat and DFL3 decoy launchers
Aircraft:	Lynx HMA8
Motto:	S'en Vat'en Guerre (He Goes to War)

HMS Marlborough (F233) is a Type 23 frigate of the Royal Navy.

Marlborough was the first naval ship on the scene to assist the stricken USS Cole after she was attacked in Aden, Yemen in October 2000. Marlborough, under the command of Capt Anthony Rix, RN, was on passage to the UK after a six-month deployment in the Gulf and had a full medical detachment on board; when her offer of assistance was accepted she immediately diverted to Aden.

In July 2004, it was announced that Marlborough would be one of three Type 23 ships to be decommissioned by the end of 2006.

In October 2004 Marlborough again came to the aid of a stricken ally when she was dispatched to assist HMCS Chicoutimi, adrift off the northwest Irish coast and arrived at the scene where RFA Wave Knight and Marlborough's sister-ship HMS Montrose were present. Montrose had been the first ship to make contact with the boat along. Other ships were also dispatched, including RFA Argus.

An interesting fact about the Marlborough is that it is the only non-American warship to have a US Navy officer permanently assigned to it. Reciprocally, a Royal Navy officer is permanently assigned to the destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill.

The 2003 Defence White Paper, entitled Delivering Security in a Changing World committed HMS Marlborough to pay off by March 2006. In June 2005, it was announced that Marlborough would be sold to the Chilean Navy, to be delivered in 2008. She will be renamed Almirante Condell.

See HMS Marlborough for other ships of the same name.

Type 23 frigate