Hecla Class Survey Vessel
The Hecla class formed the backbone of the Royal Navy's ocean survey fleet from the mid-1960s. Three ships, HMS Hecla, HMS Hecate and HMS Hydra, were ordered in the early 1960s to replace the aging survey ships HMS Scott and HMS Shackleton.
The hull design was based on that of the RRS Discovery and the Hecla class were built to commercial standards costing £1.25 million each. They carried two small survey craft, a launch, a Land Rover and a Wasp helicopter, for which there was a flight deck and hangar. A fourth ship, HMS Herald was ordered in the early 1970s. Three, all bar HMS Hecate, saw service as hospital ships in the Falklands War, while Herald also served in the Gulf War and as a temporary Antarctic Patrol Ship in 1991 and 1992. Hecate saw service as the temporary Antarctic Patrol Ship in 1982 after being painted grey and fitted with AA guns in Gibraltar. Hecate was the first Royal Navy vessel to visit South America following the Falklands conflict.
Hydra was sold to Indonesia in 1986 and renamed Dewa Kembar; Hecate decommissioned in 1990 and was broken up, while Hecla paid off in 1997 and was sold to an Irish private company, to be replaced by HMS Scott. Herald was finally decommissioned in 2001, and was replaced the same year by HMS Echo.
Read more about Hecla Class Survey Vessel: Gallery, Special Modifications
Famous quotes containing the words class, survey and/or vessel:
“During the long ages of class rule, which are just beginning to cease, only one form of sovereignty has been assigned to all men—that, namely, over all women. Upon these feeble and inferior companions all men were permitted to avenge the indignities they suffered from so many men to whom they were forced to submit.”
—Mary Putnam Jacobi (1842–1906)
“By contrast with history, evolution is an unconscious process. Another, and perhaps a better way of putting it would be to say that evolution is a natural process, history a human one.... Insofar as we treat man as a part of nature—for instance in a biological survey of evolution—we are precisely not treating him as a historical being. As a historically developing being, he is set over against nature, both as a knower and as a doer.”
—Owen Barfield (b. 1898)
“This could be the day.
I could slip anchor and wander
to the end of the jetty
uncoil into the waters
a vessel of light moonglade
ride the freshets to sundown”
—Audre Lorde (1934–1992)