Warship visits the isles
THERE was a somewhat unusual sight around some of Shetland’s coasts at the weekend as HMS Westminster made a visit on a training exercise.
The Royal Navy frigate appeared on the east side of Shetland on Saturday and travelled around the North Isles before heading past Whalsay.
It departed the isles on Sunday before travelling on to Orkney.
The submarine hunting ship was on a specialist navigator course (SpecN) to give staff training on using a frigate at “high speed in challenging waterways”.
Weapon engineer officer lieutenant commander Matthew Cox RN said: “It has been a real privilege to see some of the UK’s most beautiful coastline and wildlife.
“In an attempt to find new and challenging routes, the SpecN course has taken HMS Westminster to some of the hidden gems that warships don’t routinely get to visit.”
HMS Westminster also took time to visit Scapa Flow in Orkney to pay tribute to the 833 lives lost when battleship HMS Royal Oak was sunk in 1939 – something which commanding officer Simon P Kelly said was an “absolute privilege”.
The navy added that although it was conducting training, HMS Westminster was on “high readiness” to respond to any incident in UK waters.
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