NAVY NEWS, DECEMBER 2008
Singapore e swingswing
APOLOGIES to JFK.
Assurance Visit’ – basically an MOT that assures
There are some who say that it is the heavens,
For fi ve months, HMS Kent has been fl ying the fl ag for the UK in the Far
FOST and Fleet HQ that Kent (motto: invicta,
not the sea, which is the mainstay of world trade.
Let them come to Singapore.
East. Now the frigate is focusing her attention on the safe passage of
unconquerable) still makes the grade.
It’s six months since the Portsmouth-based
Take a trip on the Flyer, the giant Ferris wheel
trade in the Indian Ocean. Richard Hargreaves joined her on maritime warship passed through Operational Sea Training
on the waterfront of the great Asian metropolis, security patrol from Singapore to Sri Lanka.
before heading off on her Far East deployment.
and the audio guide enthuses: “There must be a
And like cramming for an exam, some skills do
hundred ships out there.”
fade over time.
And from an altitude of 300 or so feet, it looks an
“That’s what you want to see,” Cdr Hopper move towards you.”
The FOSTies have chiefl y come to see
incredibly impressive sight.
enthuses. They’re actually less of a hazard by night: they
whether Kent is ready for her spell attached to
From the bridge of HMS Kent, it looks rather
What he doesn’t want to see, however, is that use intense lights to attract fi sh, so intense in fact
Operation Calash, the anti-piracy/anti-terrorism/
more chaotic.
rather large merchantman cutting across his bow that it can be as bright as day on the bridge.
anti-smuggling mission in the Indian Ocean.
“Mad isn’t it?” says Lt Dan Gatenby, one of the
making a bee-line for one of Singapore’s many Bright as day or not, at times it can be hazardous.
But it would be wrong to come half way around
offi cers of the watch.
wharves. Singapore Strait is dominated by merchant ships.
the world and not treat the ship’s company to the
His Commanding Offi cer disagrees. Cdr Simon
There are rules of the road, but they’re not The Taiwan Strait is the domain of the fi sherman.
full FOST experience.
Hopper turns around to look at a laptop computer
necessarily followed. A steamer barrels past with “At one point we had 160 contacts on the radar
Well, not the full FOST experience; there’s
displaying details of merchant ships within a
the water lapping hungrily at his upper deck, so in a six-mile radius,” Lt Graddon recalls. “It’s the
only a half-dozen strong team on board and they
dozen-mile radius of Kent, thanks to the Automatic
heavily laden is the ship; by night, many of the busiest I’ve ever been – it actually became so
don’t have Hawk jets, submarines, tankers and
Identifi cation System, ‘electronic tagging’ for
barges – or the cables connecting them with the busy that we had the captain on the bridge in his
destroyers on tap.
merchant ships. tugs – are unlit; and then there are those cargo dressing gown helping out.”
Good job we have computers, then, for they can
Singapore is the world’s busiest port. Half the vessels who make for port irrespective of what’s You see, around this part of the world, there’s
lay all the scenarios and threats you like on top of
global trade in crude oil passes through here. in the way. no escaping the role the sea plays in daily life.
the real world shipping in the Malacca Strait.
One in four containers moved on the high seas is And in between all this, the fi shermen blithely There’s also no escaping those lovely chaps
War off Plymouth takes place on Thursday.
handled by the island nation’s docks. continue their trade. from the Flag Offi cer Sea Training, who’ve come
Kent’s programme meant war on the Lord’s Day.
The AIS monitor resembles an over-zealous “They can be quite territorial,” explains Lt Giles half way around the world to put the frigate’s
“It’s not Sunday,” executive warrant offi cer
Spirograph plot (ask your parents – Ed). The audio Graddon, another of the offi cers of the watch. ship’s company under scrutiny.
‘Jimmy’ Tarbuck says defi antly. “If I think it’s
guide on the big wheel was wrong, but he was only “They don’t like you moving through what they Two offi cers and half a dozen senior rates
Sunday I get depressed.”
short by 19. think is ‘their’ area. They can gang up and begin to have fl own in from Devonport for an ‘Operational marina Continued on page 24
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