ARA Drummond |
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Career (South Africa) | |
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Class and type: | D'Estienne d'Orves class Aviso |
Namesake: | Cape of Good Hope |
Ordered: | February 1976[1] |
Builder: | Lorient, France |
Laid down: | 12 March 1976 |
Launched: | 05 March 1977 |
Christened: | SAS Good Hope |
Out of service: | 17 November 1977 |
Fate: | Delivery blocked by UNSCR 418 during sea trials in France |
Career (Argentina) | |
Namesake: | Francisco Drummond |
Operator: | Argentine Navy |
Ordered: | 1978 |
Commissioned: | 09 November 1978 |
In service: | 9 November 1978 |
Renamed: | ARA Drummond |
Homeport: | Mar del Plata |
Fate: | active service as of 2010 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type: | Type A69 Drummond class corvette |
Displacement: | 1,170 tons |
Length: | 80 m |
Beam: | 10.3 m |
Draught: | 3.55 m |
Propulsion: | 2 Diesel engines 12,000 shp (8,900 kW) 2 shafts/propellers |
Speed: | 23 knots (43 km/h) |
Range: | 4,500 nautical miles (8,330 km) at 16 knots (30 km/h) |
Complement: | 95 |
Armament: | 4 Exocet anti-ship missiles 1 100 mm dual purpose gun 4 40 mm anti-aircraft guns 2 .50cal machine guns 2 .20 mm automatic guns 6 324 mm torpedo tubes |
Aircraft carried: | ? helicopter |
ARA Drummond (P-31) is the lead ship of the Drummond class of three corvettes of the Argentine Navy. She is the second vessel to be named after Navy Sgt Francisco Drummond.
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Drummond was built in 1977 in France for the South African Navy to be named SAS Good Hope but was embargoed at the last minute due the apartheid by United Nations Security Council Resolution 418. It was sold to Argentina instead and delivered on November 9, 1978.
She carried the P-1 pennant number until the introduction of the Espora class corvettes in 1985 when she became P-31.
In 1982 she served with her sister ships in the Falklands War ( Spanish: Guerra de Malvinas ).
On 7 October 1983, during a live fire exercise, sunk the old destroyer Almirante Domecq Garcia with a MM38 Exocet missile.[2]
On 1994, from her temporary base at Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, she participated on the blockade of Haiti during Operation Uphold Democracy.[3]
She had also served as support ship of the Buenos Aires-Rio de Janeiro tall ships races.
She is currently based at Mar del Plata and routinely conducts fishery patrol duties in the Argentine Exclusive Economic Zone having captured several trawlers in recent years [4]
On 25 February 2010 the British tabloid The Sun reported that the Drummond had been intercepted and shepherded away by the Royal Navy destroyer HMS York in the vicinity of the Falklands Islands. The story was published in the middle of a diplomatic dispute between the United Kingdom and Argentina about oil drilling, escalating the crisis as the "first head-to-head of the Falklands row".[5] The British Ministry of Defence quickly issued a denial. A spokesman said the incident had occurred a month earlier, before the oil dispute began; both ships were in the same zone in international waters during rough weather at night, and, after a friendly dialogue by radio, each had continued on its own exercise.[6][7][8][9]
Portions based on a translation from Spanish Wikipedia.
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