The unmistakeable shadow of a Type 45 destroyer is cast on to the rather green waters of Weymouth Bay.
And forming the number ten on their flight deck are members of the ship’s company of HMS Daring, as the first of the Royal Navy’s air defence destroyers reaches her tenth birthday.
Crew paused weapons and aviation training off Portland as the Portsmouth-based warship emerged from a period of maintenance to celebrate the milestone – captured on camera by the crew of the ship’s Wildcat helicopter from 825 Naval Air Squadron.
And then they tucked into a T45-shaped cake provided by builders BAE.
Launched at Scotstoun on a raw February day back in 2006, Daring sailed into her home port almost three years to the day.
After extensive trials and training, including working with the battle group of the USS Enterprise off the Eastern Seaboard of the US in 2010, and the firing of her Sea Viper main weapon system the following spring, the destroyer conducted her maiden deployment (to the Gulf) in 2012, followed by a ‘world tour’ covering 2013-14.
Part flag-flying, part test of the Type 45’s ability to track ballistic missiles (which Daring did), the deployment hit the headlines when Daring was diverted to assist the people of the Philippines in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan, earning the Firmin Sword of Peace for their efforts.
Her sailors assisted around 10,000 people whose homes or livelihoods had been affected by the storm, provided medical treatment to 300 souls and delivered over seven tonnes of fresh water to areas where the supply was knocked out.
Daring’s global deployment accounted for a very sizeable proportion of the 203,186 miles clocked up since her launch – that’s eight times around the world – at sea during 17,100 hours under way (that’s 101 weeks or just shy of two years).
All that travelling has required the guzzling of 60,000 cubic metres of fuel – 60 million litres or enough to fill the tanks of one million family cars.
You need more than fuel to sustain you on the seven seas, of course. The chefs in the galley have got through half a million sausages, 228 tonnes of spuds and 60 tonnes of baked beans.
And sheets from 836,000 toilet rolls (must’ve been all those baked beans…) were flushed down the heads. Unrolled, the paper would stretch for 25,000 kilometres (over 15,000 miles)… or from Daring’s home in Portsmouth to the Pacific island of Guam and back.
More than 3,000 shells for the 4.5in main gun, more than 200,000 rounds for the SA80 rifles carried by the ship’s company and nearly 400,000 rounds for the machine/miniguns.
As for the future, well after a spring of training and exercises, Daring is due to head out on her third deployment – a nine-month stint east of Suez – in the latter half of 2016.
