Bay-class ships meet up in Souda Bay

Sister ships RFA Lyme Bay and Cardigan Bay have met up in Souda Bay, Crete.

Cardigan Bay was handing over her duties as afloat forward support base ship to her sister Lyme Bay.

The handover consisted of verbal and written briefs, in conjunction with numerous differing types of stores to be transferred from Cardigan to Lyme.

The Bay-class vessels berthed alongside one another, a rare occurrence as both ships weigh in at 16,160 tonnes apiece, are 176.6 metres in length and have a beam of 26.4 metres.

Lyme, with battlestaff from UKMCMFOR embarked, was then heading to the Gulf to support the flotilla of minesweepers.

Lyme’s CO Captain Paul Minter said: “After a very busy period of pre-deployment preparations, both myself and Lyme Bay are looking forward to returning to the Gulf to undertake support for the UK minesweepers, a task the ship last undertook from 2011 to 2013 before she handed the duties over to Cardigan Bay.”