HMS Example (P165): From Coastal Defence Reserve to Training Tomorrow's Officers

Built for a Reserve That No Longer Exists

HMS Example was built by Watercraft Ltd of Shoreham-by-Sea and launched in 1985, though she did not begin her career in the Royal Navy at all. She was originally constructed for the Royal Naval Auxiliary Service, a volunteer coastal defence organisation, and carried the pennant number A153 as the lead vessel of a small batch of four ships known as the Example class, built to a design essentially identical to the Archer-class patrol boats being built for the Royal Navy at the same time.

When the Royal Naval Auxiliary Service was disbanded in 1994, HMS Example transferred directly into the Royal Navy proper, was reclassified as a patrol boat, and received the new pennant number P165, retaining her original name in the process, becoming the first Royal Navy vessel ever to carry it.

Training the Northumbrian URNU

HMS Example has, since her transfer, served the Northumbrian University Royal Naval Unit, providing hands-on naval training for students attending Durham, Newcastle, Northumbria, Teesside and Sunderland universities, a genuinely important pipeline through which the Royal Navy identifies and develops future officers long before they ever formally join the service. She operates with a small permanent crew of around five regular sailors, and can accommodate up to twenty people in total when carrying trainees and instructors on deployment, giving undergraduates real experience of navigation, seamanship and leadership at sea rather than purely classroom instruction. She is based at HMS Calliope in Gateshead, part of the Coastal Forces Squadron, and her role extends to supporting UK and NATO exercises across territorial waters, in Norway, Western Europe and the Baltic.

Ceremonial Duties and European Deployments

HMS Example has taken part in a range of notable public and ceremonial occasions over her career, including the Entente Cordiale celebrations in 2004, marking a century of the Anglo-French agreement, and escorting HMS Endurance during the International Fleet Review of 2005. She celebrated her own 21st birthday with a ceremonial divisions parade in 2006, and featured prominently in the Territorial Army's centenary celebrations in 2008, reflecting the close links between the Royal Navy's reserve and volunteer training structures that her own origins in the Royal Naval Auxiliary Service embodied from the very start.

HMS Example undertook a substantial twelve-week deployment in 2012, visiting Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany before continuing on to Stockholm, St Petersburg and Tallinn, a genuinely ambitious itinerary for a small patrol and training vessel, and one that gave her URNU students a considerably broader taste of European waters than their usual coastal training patrols around the north-east of England.

A Modern Refit

HMS Example rejoined the fleet in November 2016 after a prolonged refit that fitted new engines, raising her top speed to 22 knots, ensuring she remained fit for the demanding training schedule expected of a University Royal Naval Unit tender well into her fourth decade of service. She continues in that role today, a quietly essential part of the pipeline that introduces each new generation of undergraduates to naval life, seamanship and leadership long before any of them might go on to serve aboard the Royal Navy's larger and more famous ships.