Royal Navy Patrol Boats Join North Sea Exercise

Fast patrol boats HMS Blazer and Exploit were invited to ‘play the bad guys’, tearing around the waters off the Flanders coast, attempting to upset the peaceful efforts of minehunters and dive teams hoping to locate underwater explosive devices and protect sea bed infrastructure.

The duo belong to the Portsmouth-based Coastal Forces Squadron and the P2000 craft have traditionally been used for fairly ‘gentle’ training/giving university students. 

More recently, the patrol boats have been employed operationally on numerous duties, supporting Royal Navy/Royal Marine operations in the Arctic, Scandinavia and Baltic, from developing tactics to deal with fast attack craft to serving as launchpads for aerial and underwater drones.

Blazer and Exploit formed two of the seven ships committed to Sandy Coast – an exercise run annually off the Belgian or Dutch coast by the two Low Countries navies.

This year it fell to the Belgians to take the lead, with the North Sea off Zeebrugge the setting.

Minehunters from the host nation, plus the Netherlands, France and Estonia as well as specialists in very shallow water operations shared their expertise with the focus on improving the rate of finding mines and rendering them safe in some of Europe’s busiest waters.

To read more about the exercise, visit the Royal Navy's website.