A Royal Navy minehunter has left Portsmouth to begin work in the Baltic region. HMS Cattistock will be part of a NATO task force during the three-month deployment.
HMS Cattistock, the third ship of this name, is a Hunt-class mine countermeasures vessel of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1981 and commissioned on 5 March 1982, the third ship of her class.
In 1991, she was placed under the command of Sir George Zambellas, who was First Sea Lord from 2013 until 2016.
She was mentioned in the media in December 2002 after colliding with a jetty as she was leaving her homeport of HMNB Portsmouth in late November. She was left with a 2 ft hole in her side, although no crew were hurt in the collision. It was the third such collision that year: the submarine Trafalgar ran aground off the Isle of Skye earlier in November and the destroyer Nottingham hit rocks off the coast of Australia in July.[2]
In 2012 she assisted in the location of two Royal Air Force Panavia Tornados which had crashed in the Moray Firth.[3]
She took part in Exercise Joint Warrior 2013.
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