Type 23 frigate HMS Portland ready after a major upgrade.

According to information published by the Royal Navy on December 16, 2021, eight months after emerging from a major refit in her home base of Devonport – and four and a half years after her last deployment – Royal Navy's Type 23 frigate HMS Portland has passed her sternest test to date.
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Type 23 frigate HMS Portland (Picture source: Royal Navy)

Beyond delivering another Type 23 frigate to the front-line fleet – the entire class of 12 ships has undergone or is undergoing the upgrade, which includes installing the Artisan 3D radar and replacing the aged Sea Wolf missile system with the new Sea Ceptor – Portland’s completion of Operational Sea Training marks the first test of a new crewing model being trialed on the ship.

The ship has had to adapt its routines and how it deals with incidents – particularly firefighting/flooding and recovering casualties – while the team from the Fleet Operational Sea Training (FOST) in Devonport who prepare British and Allied warships for deployments around the world have devised a new regime to train and assess Portland’s sailors.

The frigate’s crew have gone through two weeks of OSST: Operational Sea Safety Training – damage control, navigation, engineering, sea boat operations, in short, the fundamentals of all seafaring operations.

And following that, four weeks of WOST: Warfighting Operational Sea Training, dealing with the "business end" of what is ultimately expected of Royal Navy warships: carrying out a combat mission in the face of potential air attacks, submarine attacks, torpedo and bomb hits, weapons, sensors, machinery breaking down – often simultaneously.

HMS Portland is a Type 23 frigate of the British Royal Navy. The ship was accepted into service by the Royal Navy on 15 December 2000 and was commissioned on 3 May the following year.