HMS Naiad (F39): Rammed by an Icelandic Gunboat, Then Sunk as a Blast Trial Target

Built at Scotstoun

HMS Naiad was built by Yarrow Shipbuilders at Scotstoun, laid down on 30 October 1962, launched on 4 November 1963 and commissioned on 15 March 1965, a Leander-class frigate displacing 2,500 tons standard and costing an estimated £4,750,000, one of a highly successful class that would go on to form the backbone of the Royal Navy's frigate force for decades.

Leading in Northern Ireland and the Far East

HMS Naiad became leader of the Northern Ireland Squadron in 1966, hosting a state dinner for the Duke of Edinburgh during Kiel Week that same year, before deploying to the Far East between 1970 and 1971, a tour that included service on the Beira Patrol, the long-running operation to prevent oil shipments reaching the breakaway Rhodesian regime via Mozambique.

A Ten-Million-Pound Rebuild

HMS Naiad underwent a major modernisation at Devonport between 1973 and 1975, a genuinely expensive undertaking costing some £10,410,000, in which her twin 4.5-inch gun mount was removed entirely and replaced with the Ikara anti-submarine missile system, transforming her from a conventional gun-armed frigate into a considerably more specialised anti-submarine platform.

Rammed in the Third Cod War

HMS Naiad's most dramatic moment came during the Third Cod War, the last and most serious of Britain's fishing disputes with Iceland, when on 24 April 1976 she was deliberately rammed by the Icelandic gunboat Týr while carrying out fishery protection duties, sustaining real hull damage in the collision, a stark illustration of just how physically confrontational the so-called Cod Wars could become despite never quite escalating into an actual shooting war between the two NATO allies.

A Silver Jubilee and a Return to the Gulf

HMS Naiad took part in the Fleet Review at Spithead marking Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee in 1977, deployed again to the Far East in 1980, and that same year led the Armilla Patrol in the Persian Gulf following the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War, a genuinely significant piece of regional presence at a moment of real instability. She went on to serve with NATO squadrons in the Mediterranean and Atlantic through further deployments in the early 1980s, following final refits in 1983 and 1984.

Sunk as a Target

HMS Naiad paid off on 1 May 1987, and rather than heading straight for the scrapyard, was repurposed under the designation HUL-VUL, or Hull Vulnerability, for weapons testing, undergoing shock and blast trials between 1988 and 1990 to help the Royal Navy better understand how modern warship hulls actually withstood combat damage. She was finally sunk as a weapons target on 28 September 1990, closing out the career of a frigate whose final, unglamorous service nonetheless helped protect the crews of every Royal Navy ship that came after her.