South African Ships (President Class)
Three Type 12 frigates were ordered as part of the Simonstown Naval Agreement. They were identical to the Royal Navy vessels when built but were altered during refits. The three ships were named after presidents of the Boer republics:
- President Kruger - after Paul Kruger)
- President Steyn - after Martinus Theunis Steyn
- President Pretorius - after Andries Pretorius
The modernisation involved installing a hangar and flight deck for a Westland Wasp helicopter, removing the Limbo mortar to form the flight deck, replacing the air search radar and fire control system and adding two triple 12.75-inch (324 mm) anti-submarine torpedo tubes.
The ships proved difficult to maintain due to the arms embargo and President Steyn was decommissioned in 1980 to provide spare parts.
Read more about this topic: Rothesay Class Frigate
Famous quotes containing the words south, african and/or ships:
“... while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted.”
—Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964)
“Like dreaming, reading performs the prodigious task of carrying us off to other worlds. But reading is not dreaming because books, unlike dreams, are subject to our will: they envelop us in alternative realities only because we give them explicit permission to do so. Books are the dreams we would most like to have, and, like dreams, they have the power to change consciousness, turning sadness to laughter and anxious introspection to the relaxed contemplation of some other time and place.”
—Victor Null, South African educator, psychologist. Lost in a Book: The Psychology of Reading for Pleasure, introduction, Yale University Press (1988)
“The northern sky rose high and black
Over the proud unfruitful sea,
East and west the ships came back
Happily or unhappily....”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)