The civilian-operated British military support vessel, Hurst Point, arrived in Durban on 19 September to take bunkers and re-supply.
British military sealift vessels are now calling at South African ports for bunkers, as they are forced to take the Cape sea route, and forego the threats now extant in the Southern Red Sea.
This year Cape Town has already seen two of the British military sealift vessels calling, the first one being back in February, when Hartland Point was heading back to the UK, after calling at four British military bases in the Middle East and East Africa. This was followed in April by Anvil Point, whilst heading in the other direction from the UK to East Africa and the Middle East.
On 19 September, at 06:00 in the morning, another one arrived. However, this one was not calling into Cape Town like the others, but rather it arrived off Durban. The British military sealift vessel Hurst Point (IMO 9234068) arrived off the Umhlanga anchorage, from Gibraltar, and anchored for a short three hour period. At 09:00, she raised her anchor and entered Durban harbour, proceeded to her berth for a short call for bunkers, stores, and fresh provisions.
Built in 2002 by Flensburger Schiffbau GmbH at Flensburg in Germany, Hurst Point is 193 metres in length, and has a gross registered tonnage of 23 235 tons. She is powered by two MaK 7M43 seven cylinder, four stroke, main engines providing 17 130 bhp (12 600 kW), and driving two controllable pitch propellers for a service speed of 17 knots. For added manoeuvrability she has a bow transverse thruster.
Now, Ro-Ro vessels are not rare callers in Durban, based on the car manufacturing import and export trade in the port. However, there is a vast difference between the Ro-Ro capability of a Pure Car and Truck Carrier (PCTC), and a Commercial Ro-Ro, which is a vessel that caters for a completely different market, and is a type of Ro-Ro that Durban hardly ever sees.
If anything, the closest Ro-Ro type to the military sealift vessels would be the combination Ro-Ro and Container carriers of the Italian Grimaldi Line, and Linea Messina. Wheeled cargo on Hurst Point is loaded via a Stern Ramp, rather than by a Quarter Ramp, and which has a loading strength of 77 tons/m2. There is also a Side Ramp on the starboard side of Hurst Point which has a loading strength of 68 tons/m2.
With 3 vehicle decks, she has 2 650 lane metres available, which gives her the capability of loading up to 220 vehicles, including 130 armoured fighting vehicles, and 70 military trucks, plus support vehicles, and ammunition, totalling 13,000 tons. She has a container carrying capacity of 668 TEU, with deck plugs provided for 30 reefers.
For loading, and discharging, her container capacity in ports that do not have infrastructure, Hurst Point has a MacGregor deck crane with a lifting capacity of 40 tons, which is offset to the starboard side of the vessel. She has a range of 12 000 nautical miles, and she has accommodation for a crew of up to 22, although she often operates with a crew of 18, and she has additional accommodation provided for a further 12 persons.
She was the first vessel of a class of six sisterships, built to an upgraded, popular German design known as the Flensburger RoRo-2700 series. All six of the military sealift vessels are known as the Point Class, and all were named after current Lighthouses of the Trinity House Lighthouse Service in the United Kingdom. Hurst Point Lighthouse being built in 1867, and located on the Hampshire coast, acting as a Waypoint Sector light for shipping entering the busy Western Solent shipping channel, en route to Southampton.
The Point Class vessels were built as a result of a Strategic Defence Review in 1998, which identified a national need for specially designed roll-on, roll-off, transport vessels, with strengthened decks for the carriage of heavy military armoured vehicles, and with all vessels being contracted to the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence. They were to be owned, operated and managed by British companies, and be operated by a British civilian crew.
The initial twenty year contract was to run until the end of 2024, with a potential 5 year extension to 2030. However in 2022, a 7 year interim extension was signed to run the contract up to 2031, in advance of a decision that will require a new class of vessel to be built. Of the six vessels that were built for the current contract, two have since been sold on for further trading, including one to the Republic of Singapore Navy, with the remaining four, including Hurst Point operating on permanent engagement on military transport activities worldwide.
The four remaining vessels of the Point Class are also nominally available to the NATO Sealift Consortium, which includes eleven other European nations. The four ships, with a total of 9 200 lane meters, make the United Kingdom the largest single contributor to the NATO Sealift Consortium, which itself has a total of 15 ships, and a capacity of about 33 700 lane metres.
Similarly, as with Royal Fleet Auxiliary crews, such as RFA Argus, which recently called into Cape Town, the crews on the military sealift vessels are civilian, but considered to be part of the Naval Reserve, and will fall under Naval Discipline in times of conflict. The all British crews are eligible to be called out as Sponsored Royal Navy Reservists (under the Reserve Forces Act 1996) if operational requirements demand. This status gives the crew military protection under the terms of the Geneva Convention, when sailing in war zones.
Owned by Foreland Shipping Ltd., of London, whose FSL company logo is displayed on her funnel, Hurst Point is operated by Andrew Weir Shipping Ltd., of London, and managed by AW Ship Management Ltd., also of London. Andrew Weir is a name well known to the older generation of casual maritime observer in South Africa. They are a shipping company with a great, historical, pedigree, as they were the owners of the Bank Line, whose general cargo vessels regularly called at South African ports on their round the world cargo service. The company also operated the RMS St. Helena mail ship, prior to her retirement.
The routing of Hurst Point appears to be very similar to the routes that were being followed by both of her sisterships Hartland Point and Anvil Point, which were Cape Town callers earlier this year. The military sealift vessels are clearly running a regular service between the United Kingdom, and bound for the British Military bases in Gibraltar, Kenya, Oman and Bahrain.
Her current voyage had her departing from the Royal Navy’s Devonport base, in Plymouth, on 25 August, bound for the Marchwood Military Port, near Southampton, where she arrived the next day on 26 August. She had completed loading in just 23 hours, and on 27 August Hurst Point sailed for Gibraltar, the British Colony located at the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea, and the location of a major Tri-Services Navy, Army and Air Force base. She spent just five hours discharging in Gibraltar, and sailed for Durban, and not Cape Town, later that same day.
Her stay in Durban lasted just under 36 hours, and with all bunkers, stores, and fresh provisions, loaded, Hurst Point sailed at 20:00 on the evening of 20 September, bound for the port of Mombasa in Kenya. Kenya is the location of the British Army Training Unit Kenya (BATUK), which has a major training base, especially built, located at Nanyuki, which lies 200 km north of Nairobi, as well as a smaller support base in Nairobi.
BATUK provides training to British Army units who are preparing to deploy on operations, or preparing to assume high-readiness tasks. BATUK consists of around 100 permanent staff, and under an agreement with the Kenyan Government, up to six infantry battalions per year, totalling 10 000 soldiers, carry out eight-week exercises in Kenya.
BATUK includes Royal Engineers (RE), who provide three squadron exercises per year, which carry out civil engineering projects, such as road and bridge building in the local communities. Royal Engineer (RE) sappers also teach Kenyan Army Engineers bomb disposal techniques, and how to deal with unexploded ordnance, and improvised explosive devices (IED).
There is a Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) regiment at BATUK, and there are two annual medical company group deployments, which provide primary health care assistance to the local civilian community. The Health Outreach Clinics are delivered in four Counties, in locations where local communities have limited, or no, access to permanent medical facilities.
As well as looking after the medical needs of the British Army soldiers undergoing training, the RAMC contingent carry out a comprehensive local outreach programme. On average the RAMC medical personnel conduct four clinics per location, with each clinic lasting for three days. All of the clinics are partnered with the Kenyan Defence Force Medical Services, Medical Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO), Local Community Healthcare Workers, Local Community Healthcare Volunteers, and the Kenya Red Cross.
Over the last two years, with a total of four exercises conducted, which totalled 64 clinics completed over a period of 198 days, almost 12 500 patients have been seen and treated. This equates to an average of 195 patients per clinic, or 65 per day. This is a permanent free service provided by BATUK to the local Kenyan population. BATUK also trains local Game Rangers in tracking, and anti-poaching methods, in order to assist the Kenyan Authorities in protecting endangered species. As well as the training, and assistance, provided to Kenya, BATUK contributes an estimated £58 million (R1.34 billion) to the Kenyan economy each year.
What is less well known, is that even with the increase in the provision of military assistance to NATO, due to Putin’s sabre rattling in both Ukraine, and the Baltic States, that outside of the UK the largest number of British Armed Forces deployments are actually training, or operational deployments in Africa.
The UK has short-term military training teams deployed throughout Africa to help build the capacity of national military forces, prepare both AU and African UN troops for peacekeeping missions, ensuring they can respond appropriately and proportionally to the security threats they face, including terrorism, the illegal wildlife trade, violations of human rights, and emerging humanitarian crises, throughout the continent of Africa.
Written by Jay Gates for Africa Ports & Ships and republished with permission. The original article can be found here.
