Ships
A total of 17 Asheville-class gunboats were built between 1966 and 1971.
During the Third Cod War between Iceland and Great Britain in 1975-1976 the Icelandic Coast Guard, through the Minister of Justice Ólafur Jóhannesson (the political leader of the Coast Guard), requested the loan of one or more Asheville boats from the United States Navy. With their high speed they were considered ideal for the Icelanders to counter the British frigates protecting trawlers on the Icelandic fishing banks. The U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger categorically turned down the Icelandic request. This hardly came as a great surprise to the Icelanders, as the request for the Asheville boats was probably a political ploy, intended to show how serious Iceland was in overcoming the Royal Navy in the struggle for the fishing banks. The seaworthiness of the Ashevilles in the rough seas of the North Atlantic around Iceland has to be considered doubtful, at best.
Read more about this topic: Asheville Class Gunboat
Famous quotes containing the word ships:
“Give blue-eyed men their swivel chairs
To whirl in tall buildings.
Allow them many ships at sea,
And on land, soldiers
And policemen.”
—Arna Bontemps (1902–1973)
“I saw three ships go sailing by,
Over the sea, the lifting sea....”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“Shuttles in the rocking loom of history,
the dark ships move, the dark ships move,
their bright ironical names
like jests of kindness on a murderer’s mouth;”
—Robert Earl Hayden (1913–1980)