Royal Navy to support relief efforts in the wake of Hurricane Beryl
)
The patrol is scheduled to arrive in the Cayman Islands this weekend, where her crew will be ready to offer assistance and support to help communities affected by flooding and storm damage.
Commanding Officer, Commander Tim Langford, said: “Trent remains at high readiness to support our Overseas Territories in the event of hurricane or storm damage. Having operated in the Caribbean since December last year, we continue our fight against illegal trafficking but my ship’s company is fully prepared to deliver aid and assistance when called upon.”
The Beryl could bring winds of more than 155mph and has already caused a large amount of destruction in the region this week.
HMS Trent is crewed by more than 50 sailors and departed from Puerto Rico on Wednesday, carrying bottled water, basic emergency supplies and equipment.
The ship has a Crisis Response Troop embarked comprising 24 Commando Royal Engineers and their equipment, and supported by experts in planning, information operations, meteorological forecasting, and image capture.
Additional personnel include a team from 700X Naval Air Squadron who pilot HMS Trent’s embarked Puma Flight (Remote Piloted Air System), allowing them to conduct airborne reconnaissance and damage assessment in direct support of the Crisis Response Troop.
A specialist Rapid Deployment Team has already travelled to the Eastern Caribbean to provide consular assistance to any affected British Nationals.
The UK continues to work with the Caribbean’s crisis response organisation, CDEMA, to provide assistance for the worst affected islands including St Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada.
In previous years, members of the Armed Forces deployed to the Caribbean under Operation Ventus to provide humanitarian assistance by providing food and basic medical relief, as well as engineering to repair damaged homes and infrastructure, as well as creating flood and hurricane defences.
Hurricane Beryl has been described as the earliest ever Category 5 storm to form in the Atlantic, with storms of this scale usually recorded later in the summer.
HMS Trent has been deployed to the Caribbean since the end of 2023, where she has been disrupting drug networks across the world following a series of seizures at sea.
The Portsmouth-based ship has seized £511m of drugs across five operations in the Caribbean since deploying.