The was no official announcement but the RN has just lost another important capability. RFA Diligence is a forward repair ship able to provide specialist engineering support to ships and submarines alongside in overseas ports or even at sea. Diligence has been inactive in Birkenhead for over a year and the MoD has just put her up for sale.
RFAs do not conduct a formal decommissioning ceremony like HM ships so it was easy for the MoD to quietly decide to dispose of her. Even after the 2015 SDSR the MoD was giving RFA Diligence’s out of service date as 2020 but a deadly combination of lack of money and manpower appears to have brought a premature end to her career. At the time of writing, she remains optimistically listed as active on the Royal Navy website.
Diligence is the perfect name for an odd-looking ship, an unsung hero diligently performing vital support work almost unnoticed. Built in 1981 as an oil rig support vessel Stena Inspector, she was a Ship Taken Up From Trade (STUFT) and sent to the South Atlantic to act as a floating repair vessel during the Falklands war. It proved to be a very wise decision with so many ships sustaining damage during air attacks. The engineers aboard worked round the clock performing miracles of improvisation in their floating workshop, patching up ships to rejoin the fight or making them seaworthy enough for the long journey home.
Appreciating her great value the MoD purchased the ship after the war, renaming her Diligence and she has served for 33 years all over the globe. She was often overseas for up to 5 years at a time with her civilian crew and naval party being rotated at 4-6 month intervals. She has provided aid to many stricken naval vessels over the years but in recent times most of her work has been supporting submarines deployed East of Suez.
Diligence is still in very good condition having had major life-extension in 2007, a complete new sewage plant in 2014 and a general refit at Cammel Lairds as recently as March 2015. There is no material reason she should not keep serving until 2020.
There are 4 Trafalgar class submarines still in service, the last of which will not decommission until 2022. Assuming they will continue to be sent East of Suez, these vessels will need greater engineering support as they age. They will have to make do without her specialist facilities and rely on what is available in various Gulf ports. The RN is building a new permanent support base in Bahrain which could be an excuse as to why we can do without a forward repair ship. Doubtless, the new facilities in Bahrain will provide great service to vessels in the Gulf region. However a repair ship can be sent anywhere in the world in response to unpredictable events. Diligence had a dynamic positioning system that allowed her to come safely alongside and raft up with ships in conditions up to sea state 3. During the Falklands War, she was able to conduct major repairs in the open ocean, an option that is now gone.
The recession in the oil industry has given rise to a global surplus of offshore support ships available on the second-hand market. A modern equivalent to Diligence could probably be obtained for less than £30M. It would require some conversion work but for a budget of around £50M the MoD could replace this ship. Of course, the bigger challenge at present would be finding the crew and engineering staff.
The loss of Diligence in itself is not catastrophic, just another instance of salami-slicing, death by a thousand small cuts in the hope that it goes almost unnoticed. This ship was a genuine force-multiplier that allowed vessels with damage or defects to quickly return to action without long passage home for repair. When your fleet is already too small, removing a relatively cheap capability that can maximise your assets is simply foolish.
A very sad decision
Hope they be taken all the tooling and engineering supplies off of her , the ship is tired but her workshops are the best in the fleet .
They have to crew the tide class….so whilst sad I understand the reasoning, plus the workshops can prob be made plug and play if required onboard a bay class
She did need replacing
Served on this ship many times before and after her name change whilst serving in the RFA a great ship and will be hard to replace
To be honest I can see this capability coming back quite quickly once the rfa has recovered from its manpower crisis. Caused by the sdsr 2010. All in all the worse defence review ever to the point where nearly all decisions it made have been reversed if possible. It takes time to train the new people comeing up through the training.
I suggest all those readers contact their MP and point out the loss of capacity. Yes it can be replaced but it is a very important capacity that there is no plan to replace, not one. Unless we kick up a fuss then this will slip by MPs who have no idea what is being lost.
So get out there and take the time one Saturday morning to book an appointment with your MP of whatever colour red/blue/yellow and point out what this means.
Have done…
Saying that the blog title should be Save the Royal Navy from itself..
Just in the last few days the Home Affairs select committee, chaired by that noted warmonger Keith Vaz, are calling for RN vessels in the channel to prevent illegal immigration / Jihadi smuggling. Post Brexit and with two new OPVs about to pop off the production line, with an expensive survey vessel in the Med doing a remarkably similar mission, with severe manpower shortages and with various documents from the SDSR or the National Strategy for Maritime Security listing such things as important…
Now some might say this was a heaven sent opportunity to display a can do attitude, gain a PR victory and press a case for increased funding to actually carry out this mission on a full time basis, therefore securing more manpower and hulls.
The Navy’s response? Announce that they’ll sell off three perfectly good OPVs, sell a recently refitted RFA early and say it is the responsibility of the Border Agency.
You couldn’t make it up. I never thought I’d actually prefer the slimy and slick PR of the RAF but this is…. Cabbage like behaviour.
Served on her in the Gulf as part of Naval Party 1600, great memory’s and sad to see, she is the only ship I served on still not reduced to scrap.As a Birkenhead lad, ex Lairds and then RN, I will be waving a sad farewell to the Dill when she leaves…
After scrapping another ship…how long will it be until we hear “Royal Navy scrapped without replacement” ? After the Falklands conflict you would hope the govts had learned something…but obviously not 🙁
Seeing as she’s just had a recent refit, why isn’t she mothballed and kept in reserve rather than sell /scrap.
Or even loaned out…brings in a bit of cash and keeps a good ship simultaneously 🙂
Former XO and CO of this fine ship. Are was state of the art when she was taken up from trade (STUFT) to serve as Sub Base in South Georgia in the aftermath of hostilities in the SOUTLANT and serve Captain Chris Knapp arranging services to strengthen the damaged areas of HMS Southampton after a ding with the containership Torbay in the SoH. After the work was completed we towed her alongside Diligence through the SoH to disembarrass the damaged Missiles and 4.5 Gun Ammunition. The explosives were removed through the hole in the underside of the hull made by the collision. I am hoping to celebrate her sailing to the scrappers soon. Even if its just an glass if Champers on Southsea seafront.
It was a privilege to be XO to Captain Chris Knapp for the Tow and Damage Strengthening. I am surprised he did not receive a Visit to The Palace.
Image of RFA Diligence towing HMS Southampton alongside through Straits of Hormuz at Dawn with Venus an Morning Star