HMS Kent (F78): The First Warship of the New Millennium

The First Ship of a New Century

HMS Kent was launched on 28 May 1998 and commissioned on 8 June 2000 under Commander John Clink, a Type 23 Duke-class frigate and the twelfth Royal Navy ship to carry the name, earning the rather neat distinction of being the first ship to enter Royal Navy service in the 21st century.

She was sponsored by Princess Alexandra, daughter of Prince George, Duke of Kent, and, like all of her class, carries the name of the dukedom rather than the English county itself.

In April 2001 she also became notable for a different reason, appointing Lieutenant Commander Vanessa Jane Spiller as the Royal Navy's first female Executive Officer, a significant milestone for a service still working through the practical implications of opening its ranks more fully to women.

Patrolling the Persian Gulf

HMS Kent seized more than £4 million of oil and illegal cargo during a Persian Gulf deployment in March 2002, an early sign of the steady maritime security work that would come to define much of her career.

She returned to the Gulf in 2006 and 2007 for 60 days of intensive security operations, carrying out 47 security sweeps of vessels approaching oil platforms, and again in 2014 and 2015, deploying alongside the American aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in operations against smugglers, pirates and terrorist organisations before returning home in May 2015.

Hunting Pirates Off the Horn of Africa

HMS Kent, under Commander Ben Ripley, deployed to the Horn of Africa in July 2013 following a refit and recommissioning, taking part in anti-piracy and anti-drug operations alongside the Combined Maritime Forces coalition until October that year, exactly the kind of patient, patrol-heavy work that had become an increasingly central part of the modern Royal Navy's mission in the waters off Somalia.

Into the Arctic and Around the World

HMS Kent took part in a significant NATO task group deployment to the Barents Sea, above the Arctic Circle, in May 2020, exercising freedom of navigation alongside three American Arleigh Burke-class destroyers in some of the coldest and most strategically sensitive waters in the world.

The following year she was assigned to HMS Queen Elizabeth's Carrier Strike Group 21, serving as one of six escorting vessels forming a protective screen around the flagship carrier and taking primary responsibility for anti-submarine warfare, working alongside HMS Richmond and helicopters from 820 Naval Air Squadron to track underwater threats as the task group made its way from the Atlantic, through the Mediterranean, and into the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

Across seven and a half months away from Portsmouth she covered 48,525 nautical miles, visited ten ports on four continents, coordinated with 17 allied navies, and on 14 October 2021 called at Chattogram in Bangladesh to take part in celebrations marking fifty years of Bangladeshi independence.

Her embarked Wildcat helicopter flew over 239 hours during the deployment, while Royal Marines from 42 Commando carried out board and search operations against piracy and smuggling, and her crew found time amid all of it to administer more than 12,000 Covid tests to keep the ship's company healthy through a pandemic-affected voyage.

Still in Service

HMS Kent underwent an extensive refit that saw her recommission on 5 October 2018 with the modern SeaCeptor missile system, and continued in active service under Commander Jeremy Brettell, who took command in January 2022, escorting HMS Queen Elizabeth during Operation Firedrake in northern European waters in September 2023.

More than two decades after she first entered service as the Royal Navy's ship of the new millennium, HMS Kent is, for now, out of the water rather than out on deployment: by August 2026 she had spent two and a half years in deep maintenance at Devonport, held up by a Power Generation Machinery Upgrade replacing her original diesel generators.

With sister ship HMS Iron Duke withdrawn from the fleet the same year, the Royal Navy was left with just five active frigates, and Kent's own return to sea has been pushed back to later in the year.

This is a live article which will be updated when more information is available.