AFTER 29 years’ service, veteran tanker Bayleaf sails for the final time for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary this week.
Much of that service has been spent supporting RN and Allied naval operations in the Gulf (including an unprecedented 12 years as the Armilla Patrol/Arabian Gulf Ready tanker and eight years continuously east of Suez) – and it is from that volatile region that the ship has returned from her last tour of duty.
Her final spell in the Gulf proved to be a relatively short one – under two years. Operating out of Bahrain and Dubai principally for six weeks at a time, she was required to be at 60 minutes’ notice to provide fuel for Allied/Coalition warshops in the Gulf or Indian Ocean by day or night.
Bayleaf is being withdrawn under last autumn’s defence review; a smaller fleet of warships, sadly, means a smaller fleet of support vessels.
She joined the RFA family in 1982 and was immediately despatched to the South Atlantic to support the liberation of the Falklands (earning a battle honour for her part in Operation Corporate).
Since that inaugural mission, the tanker has sailed 1.4 million miles (that’s the equivalent of 47 times around the earth) and carried out in excess of 5,000 replenishments.
The ship enters Portland tomorrow before making her final voyage under the Blue Ensign on Saturday when she sails to Devonport.
The RFA standard will be hauled down for the last time on April 20 when there will be a ceremony to commemorate all she and her crew have achieved since 1982.
Bayleaf’s passing leaves a solitary Leaf-class tanker in service with the RFA, Orangeleaf.
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