The Type 23 Duke Class frigate HMS Montrose will arrive in Malta tomorrow for a five-day visit, making her way back home from the Somali Basin after a very successful deployment on anti-piracy patrol in the Gulf of Aden and the Somali Basin.
The frigate has been busy for the last four months undertaking Operation Ocean Shield as part of a dedicated NATO counter-piracy task force. Formed from the Ships of the Standing NATO Maritime Group1 this is a truly multi-national naval group comprising HDMS Esbern Snare (Flagship) from Denmark, the USS Kauffman and USS Laboon and ITS Bersagliere from Italy.
During this period Montrose has had several measurable successes in the destruction of pirate whalers and moreover the freeing of the crew of the mv Beluga Fortune following a piracy attack. Montrose has been patrolling areas of the Internationally Recommended Transit Corridor (IRTC) in the Gulf of Aden where she recorded her first success, however she has been predominantly patrolling in the Somali Basin where she has been actively “Deterring and Disrupting” piracy.
Not just actively destroying pirate whalers, Montrose has regularly conducted operations to disrupt large merchant vessels which pirates have been using as ‘mother ships’; her Lynx helicopter too has been flying hours of sorties up and down the coast of Somalia conducting Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) missions of the known pirate camps gathering information for the coalition community on the movements of pirate camps and vessels.
Additionally Montrose has been indulging in international relations and Wider Regional Engagement, visiting both the Seychelles and Tanzania to provide both engineering support as well as training in board and search techniques. This should enable more forces in the region to take on a greater role in anti-piracy operations.
Montrose was commissioned by Lady Edith Rifkind in 1992, and has a length of 133 metres, displacing over 4,000 tonnes. She currently has a complement of 199 officers and ratings and is equipped with the latest weapons, sensors and communications systems, including the vertical launch Seawolf missile system for close air defence, a 4.5 inch gun, anti submarine torpedoes, Harpoon anti-ship missiles and a Lynx helicopter.
HMS Montrose will be berthed at Pinto Wharf. She will not be open to the public during her stay.