HMS Leeds Castle (P258)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
|
| Career (UK) |  |
|---|---|
| Name: | HMS Leeds Castle |
| Operator: | Royal Navy |
| Builder: | Hall, Russell & Company |
| Laid down: | 18 October 1979 |
| Launched: | 29 October 1980 |
| Commissioned: | 27 October 1981 |
| Decommissioned: | 8 August 2005 |
| Fate: | Awaiting disposal |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Castle class patrol vessel |
| 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 5,640 bhp (4.2 MW) diesels, 2 shafts |
| Speed: | 18 knots (33 km/h) max 12 knots (22 km/h) cruise |
| Complement: | 45 (+ accommodation for 25 Royal Marines) |
| Armament: | Oerlikon / BMARC 30 mm L/75 KCB gun on single Laurence Scott DS-30B mount 4 × L7 General Purpose Machine Guns |
| Aircraft carried: | Flight deck can support aircraft up to Westland Sea King-size |
HMS Leeds Castle (P258) is a Castle-class patrol ship built by Hall Russell & Company of Aberdeen, Scotland for the British Royal Navy. She was launched in October 1980 and commissioned 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 despatch 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.
|
||||||||
