HMS Shoreham’s crew swap sand for snow as they return from Gulf
Six months of demanding operations in punishing temperatures and challenging conditions are over for the crew of HMS Shoreham who are gearing up to return home to Scotland.
A combined exercise with three of the Royal Navy’s five other vessels based in the Gulf brought the curtain down on the 45 sailor’s tour of duty aboard the minehunter.
The Royal Navy rotates its crews through its four minehunters based in Bahrain, with sailors spending four to six months in the Gulf before trading places with a crew from the UK.
Crew 5 from Faslane-based 1st Mine Countermeasures Squadron took charge of Shoreham – after a period in quarantine due to Covid measures – in late July, with temperatures regularly topping 45°C and high humidity, making for exhausting conditions on deck, and testing air conditioning and cooling systems aboard to the limit.
And by the time they’d completed their six months, temperatures were a pleasant high teens/low 20s.
In between, came the challenge of a double engine change and dry docking for work on the hull, regular patrols as part of the international effort to keep trade moving freely in the region, and exercises to ensure the mine warfare team remained at the top of their game.
The largest of the latter took place just before Christmas when Shoreham joined an Anglo-American force to head up the coast for the first naval operation alongside the Kuwaiti Navy since the beginning of the pandemic.
Christmas was spent alongside at the UK’s Naval Support Facility in Bahrain and a few days to enjoy adventurous training in the kingdom, but otherwise the tempo for Shoreham has rarely slackened.
