HMS Torquay (F43)

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Career
Ordered:	?
Laid down:	March 11, 1953
Launched:	July 1, 1954
Commissioned:	10 May 1956
Decommissioned:	23 March 1985
Fate:	Scrapped 1987
Struck:
Motto:	?

This is a page about an individual ship, for background information please see: Whitby class frigate

H.M.S. Torquay (F43) was a Type 12 Whitby class frigate of the Royal Navy. They were the first frigate to have the "V" form hull which is certainly the most outstanding small warship design of the 20th century. This evolutionary design made it possible to be driven in head sea without the usual slamming which occurs with conventional destroyers of the time. Each Frigate cost 3.5 million pounds and the first ship completed was H.M.S. Torquay in May 1956.

H.M.S. Torquay was launched by Lady Monkton and participated in the Suez operation in 1956. In 1958 she was diverted to Tobruk following the assassination of he Iraqi Royal Family.

Between 1967 and 1973 and 1983 and 1985 H.M.S. Torquay served as a navigation training ship based in Portsmouth. At an unknown time the ship was refitted with a solid main mast (as opposed to a lattice mast)and a large training navigation room was built where the forward set of triple barreled mortars used to be located (leaving one set of mortars). In 1974 she was refitted to undertake trials of CAAIS- Computer Assisted Action Information System. H.M.S. Torquay attended the 1977 Silver Jubilee Fleet Review off Spithead.

Replaced by the Leander Class frigate H.M.S. Juno as the navigation training vessel for the Royal Navy, H.M.S. Torquay paid off on March 23, 1985. At the time she was the longest serving ship of her class and the oldest frigate in the fleet. She was sold for scrap in 1987 and left Portsmouth on July 1 1987 to be broken up in Barcelona, Spain.