Royal Navy Hunt-class minehunter HMS Cattistock got underway from naval base Portsmouth on Thursday to join the Standing NATO Mine Countermeasures Group 1 (SNMCMG1).
Cattistock will be spending the next three months in the Baltic Sea contributing to NATO mine countermeasure operations.
“The ship’s company have worked incredibly hard to ready themselves and the ship for operations, and this is particularly noteworthy given that most of us were on operations in the Middle East just a few months ago,” Lieutenant Commander Charlie Wheen, commanding officer of HMS Cattistock said.
During her deployment HMS Cattistock will take part in a series of multinational exercises and operations alongside their NATO partners, including force integration training and historical ordnance disposal.
The crew of HMS Cattistock returned from a seven month deployment in the Gulf just six months ago. The short interval between these deployments is characteristic of the operational tempo that is maintained across the mine warfare community, the Royal Navy said.