RFA Mounts Bay (L3008)

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Career

Ordered:	19 November 2001
Laid down:	14 January 2002
Launched:	19 April 2004
Commissioned:	15 September 2006
Decommissioned:
Fate:	In service.
Struck:
General characteristics
Displacement:	16,190 tons full load
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 (33 km/h)
Range:	8,000 nautical miles (15,000 km) at 15 knots (28 km/h).
Complement:	59
Military Lift:	356 troops; 1200 Linear metres of vehicles (e.g. 32 Challenger 2 MBT's or 150 light trucks); 12 × 40 FEU (Forty-Foot Equivalent Units) or 24 × 20 TEU (Twenty-foot Equivalent Units) 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:

See HMS Mounts Bay for the Royal Navy World War II Bay-class anti-aircraft frigate of the same name.

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 took part in the Vela Deployment. The deployment lasted 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 were involved. This deployment saw for the first time, an Albion class vessel, Albion taking part in amphibious operations with a Bay class vessel. The deployment was divided into two phases, the first in local waters and the second in waters off 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. After completing the Vela Deployment, she returned to the U.K. to load vehicles and equipment for Exercise Clockwork in northern Norway. She reached Sorreisa on the 9th December. Sorreisa is within the Arctic Circle and is the furthest north any Bay Class vessel has been so far. After discharging her cargo Mounts Bay returned to the U.K., successfully completing operations from the Equator to the Arctic Circle in the last three months of 2006. She attended the Dover Maritime Careers Festival on Friday 23rd and Saturday 24th March 2007, mooring at the Dover Western Docks.