Skip to content
Recruiting now.Explore navy careers

Royal Navy ships work with divers to enhance capability

Navy Divers
20 January 2025
Ships from the Royal Navy Gibraltar Squadron added another string to their bow after a series of exercises with divers.

Project Augmentra saw HMS Cutlass carry out a number of serials with six members of the Gibraltar Clearance Diving Element (CDE) within British Gibraltar Territorial Waters to see how the squadron can support diving operations.

The exercises followed on from a historical joint dive with the Royal Moroccan Navy when sister vessel HMS Dagger escorted the diving support boat Crabb – named after the legendary Royal Navy WW2/Cold War frogman ‘Buster’ – across the Strait of Gibraltar.

The latest exercise saw the divers embark Cutlass with their state-of-the-art Clearance Divers Life Support Equipment. The ship sailed close to the runway at Gibraltar Airport for the serials, which began with a successful diving casualty exercise to test Cutlass’s ability to recover an injured diver in a variety of scenarios.

The two units conducted multiple waves of diving to not only practice their own individual emergency procedures, but also work close to a Royal Navy Patrol Launch.

Lieutenant Commander Jonathan Davies, the commanding officer of HMS Dagger, and a clearance diver by trade, said: “As a very-high-readiness squadron, we have now added another skill set to our portfolio.

It was great to see the squadron and the clearance divers come together to prove a concept of utilising the launch as a dive platform.

Chief Petty Officer James Roberts

“Being able to join the capabilities of the already well-established units has provided UKSTRATCOM with an enhanced capability. This has the potential to contribute positively to our existing maritime security operations.”
Recovering the divers and weighing anchor, HMS Cutlass returned to HMNB Gibraltar to reflect on their successful training and future cooperation.
 
Chief Petty Officer James Roberts, the Officer in Charge of the Gibraltar CDE, said: “It was great to see the squadron and the clearance divers come together to prove a concept of utilising the launch as a dive platform.
 
“This has never been achieved before but has proven that the divers can deploy and safely recover divers to the launch during diving operations.
 
“This certainly now offers our Command more options when undertaking future tasking.”
 
Already a successful start of the year, the two units will continue to work together throughout 2025 to further develop their capabilities and build on their unique relationship.

Related articles

Navy News

Direct from the front-line, the official newspaper of the Royal Navy, Navy News, brings you the latest news, features and award winning photos every month.