HMS Zest (R02): The Only Z-Class Destroyer Rebuilt as a Frigate

A Postwar Training Role

HMS Zest was a Z-class destroyer commissioned on 12 July 1944, and following a refit at Leith between September and November 1945, went on to serve with the 4th Destroyer Flotilla in the Home Fleet before turning to torpedo training duties at Portsmouth in early 1948.

The Only One of Her Class Rebuilt

After a period in reserve at Chatham Dockyard, Zest underwent conversion into a Type 15 fast anti-submarine frigate between 1954 and 1956, emerging with the new pennant number F102. She holds the genuine distinction of being the only Z-class destroyer ever converted into a Type 15 frigate, a rare honour among her sister ships.

Rescuing 45 People in a Typhoon

Zest led the 3rd Training Squadron before joining the 4th Frigate Squadron, and after a Malta refit deployed to the Far East in 1964, where she conducted patrols during the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation.

During a South China Sea typhoon, when the Bombay Shoal claimed the grounded merchant ship Pompadour and the tug Salvonia sent to help her also became stranded, Zest rescued the 45 people aboard both vessels, a particularly dramatic and dangerous rescue operation that stands as one of the finest moments of her later career.

Breaking Free on the Way to the Scrapyard

After paying off in December 1965 and a further deployment to the West Indies in 1967, Zest was decommissioned in July 1968 and sold for scrap in 1969.

In a small final flourish of defiance, she broke free while under tow to the breakers behind the tug Bustler, though she was recovered and finally arrived at the Dalmuir yard on 18 July 1970, bringing to a close the career of the one Z-class destroyer that had earned herself an entirely new life as a frigate.