Royal Navy patrol ship HMS Trent recently shared a striking photo of a tropical storm at sea on its official Twitter account.

HMS Trent, the third Batch 2 River-class Offshore Patrol Vessel, is currently engaged in anti-narcotics patrols in the Caribbean region.

The ship recently sailed from Curaçao to rejoin these efforts.

In an operation earlier this year, HMS Trent intercepted a go-fast boat suspected of smuggling cocaine. The vessel was alerted to the smugglers by a United States maritime patrol aircraft and used its radar to track the boat. During the pursuit, the crew of the go-fast boat began discarding bales of cocaine into the sea.

The Royal Navy, along with the US Coast Guard Tactical Law Enforcement Team, successfully recovered 2,548kg of cocaine. The recovery operation, which lasted through the night, showcased the ship’s radar capabilities and the crew’s effectiveness.

Commander Tim Langford, HMS Trent’s Commanding Officer, commented on the operation: “The combined capabilities of the ship, the embarked US Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment and our 47 Commando coxswains have proven the utility of our ship in countering narcotics smuggling. Working seamlessly, Trent and her crew continue to achieve success in intercepting traffickers.”

Since deploying to the Caribbean in December, HMS Trent has seized 6,390kg of drugs, valued at £511 million. The ship is part of a multinational effort to reduce drug smuggling to Europe and America.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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18 COMMENTS

  1. Hmmm…wouldn’t the anti-narcotics mission (and many others) be enhanced by an organic helicopter capability aboard the River? Is there a land based alternative mission support copter typically on-call throughout the Caribbean? 🤔

    • Good Morning from Durban. The Rivers have no hangars so can only embark a helicopter for a short period.Suggestions include the fitment of a telescopic type facility to house a long term deployment but maybe as drones become more sophisticated these would be better suited to task? The UK still has five overseas territories in the Caribbean plus a number of friendly Commonwealth island nations from which to operate helicopters plus ops in conjunction with RFA assets which can house choppers, but budgets and assets are limited so probably best to work in conjunction with the USA which as you know has a much larger and closer presence in the area.
      Regards from chilly morning 14 degrees Durban rising to a pleasant 22 degrees later.

      • Thought that there may be sufficient support from British Overseas Territories/Commonwealth countries in the Caribbean. May be a different in the Pacific. Did RN issue an RFI for telescopic maintenance structure for Rivers?

        • Morning USAF .I don’t think it went as far as and RFI. the suggestion was part of an excercise to see what options existed for upgrading the Rivers.2.They can only host a helicopter for a short period which of course limits their utility when far out to sea.

          • I’m not sure that only being able to host a helicopter for two or three weeks at a time is that big an issue in the Caribbean. If the helicopter breaks, the captain can decide if it’s worth an unscheduled port stop. Hiring a space on land to do scheduled maintenance and flying there for a few days doesn’t seem impossible or indeed all that difficult. It’s worth remembering that every few weeks the OPVs come into port anyway to exchange crew watches.

            And if there are a few days in the year when extreme conditions or geographic position make it impossible to maintain the helicopter that way, it’s still better to have it available the rest of the year around. I’m not sure that’s true for the other four forward-based OPVs, specially given the lack of Wildcats. Perhaps Proteus in a few years time.

          • Thanks Jon. I suppose a big concern is the exposure to a marine environment up close which as you know will degrade most materials very quickly!

      • A long while back, I lived in Key West FL and was permitted to visit the JIATS on a couple of occasions. The mix of people, national origins- over 20, assets and a host of other things is beyond a layman’s ( like me) normal comprehension & is in VERY plain language OUTSTANDING. In addition they rarely seek any recognition . BZ the the USCG .

    • Rivers is about easy maintenance in foreign shores. NO helicopter. Unmanned drones will hopefully be coming. Stuff that could be air freighted around to the next port.

    • If the USN want to lend us a couple of MQ-8C, seeing as they aren’t using them, I’d hope we wouldn’t say no.

    • I think the way it works is that the US Drug Enforcement Agency mounts Caribbean air patrols which co-ordinate surface interceptions by the multi-national fleet of patrol vessels and US cutters.

        • Would be Odin if we were being Norse.
          I think the RN has more history of going down the classical side wrt ship naming. Just think of all those light cruisers named after nymphs and constellations!

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