A friend of mine – Derek Dawson -and a former Guest at Chanters Lodge, served on this ship from 1960-1962 and cruised all over the world on it! He now lives in cold cold Scotland and breathes life into other people from his computer! Isn’t it just a stunningly beautiful sight? The ship – not Derek reading his paper outside Room 10 some time back!
Derek and partner Pam intend to go to the 50th anniversary of the launch of the ship in October next year! Awesome!

HMS Londonderry was launched by Viscountess Brookeborough on the 20th May 1958 and commissioned on the 20th July 1960 at J. Samuel White’s shipyard, Cowes, Isle of Wight. A “Rothesay” Class Modified Type 12 1st Rate Anti-Submarine Frigate similar to the earlier “Whitby” Class ships and forerunner of the later “Leander” Class.

Primarily designed for the location and destruction of the most modern submarines, these frigates were fitted with the latest underwater detection equipment and anti-submarine weapons of post war development. Good sea keeping qualities enable the vessels to maintain their high speed in rough seas. They are all welded and the structual arrangements were specially designed to achieve the lightest possible structure.

The propelling machinery fitted included geared turbines of novel design and high power. Double reduction gearing allows low propellor revolutions at high power and the propellor efficiency is correspondingly high. This coupled with improvements to hull design, enables these frigates to achieve over 30 knots on only 75 percent of the power required by older destroyers of comparable displacement.

1960 – 1967 Served Home, West Indies and Far East. 1967 – 1969 Modernisation at Portsmouth. 1975 – 1979 Refitted Rosyth for conversion to Trials Ship. 1984 Paid off to become Harbour Training Ship for HMS Sultan at Gosport. 25 June 1989 Sunk as a target off Scotland.