A military ship has been spotted off the coast in the West Country. The vessel was seen on Monday (March 14) off the Dorset coast and has since moved on to Devon.
HMS Severn is a Ministry of Defence vessel that is used to patrol the UK and international waters. Following the Dorset coastline appearance, she is currently in Guernsey, but many BCP residents have been left baffled about why she was in the area, reports Dorset Live.
The Royal Navy, who run the operations of the MOD vessels, have now given information on why the ship had swapped its base in Portsmouth for Dorset's waters. HMS Severn, nicknamed 'Lucky Severn', is the Royal Navy’s dedicated navigational training ship. It is currently running a Fleet Navigating Officers (FNO) course for new navigators.
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The trainees, who took the ship out of Portsmouth, can be seen operating the ship in an image below. The course involves navigating tricky waters without GPS. Originally a patrol ship, the 80-metre-long vessel could previously be found in home and overseas waters (including an eight-month stint in the Caribbean in 2015) for 14 years until 2017.
Her patrols were mainly done to check that trawlers were sticking to regulations in UK fishing grounds. However, she returned to active service in July 2020 and has conducted Fleet Navigator Officer (FNO) courses and Specialist Navigator courses, training over 50 navigators including international students from Chile and New Zealand.
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