HMS Daring has returned to Portsmouth after an unusually long and eventful deployment. During nine months away the Type 45 destroyer visited 21 ports and clocked up 44,000 miles. Having set off across the Atlantic in May last year to support anti-piracy operations in the Caribbean, she continued westward, with a maiden transit of the Panama Canal, to the US Pacific seaboard to take part in ballistic missile tracking trials.
Moving on to Australasia to participate in a large multi-national naval exercise, she later represented the United Kingdom at the Royal Australian Navy’s Centenary Fleet Review. Shortly afterwards Daring was diverted to the Philippines to assist in emergency relief efforts following the devastation of Typhoon Haiyan. During nine days on task, the ship’s Lynx helicopter surveyed more than 70 islands over 42,200 square miles.
Her ship’s company treated 300 patients and distributed 21 tonnes of stores and 7,656 litres of fresh drinking water in the area. In respect of the role she played, the ship was personally welcomed back by the Philippines Consul General to the UK.
