HMS Amberley Castle (K386)

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Amberley Castle in January 1945
History
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Amberley Castle
Namesake	Amberley Castle
Laid down	31 May 1943
Launched	27 November 1943
Commissioned	24 November 1944
Identification	Pennant number: K386
Fate	Converted to weather ship in 1957, scrapped in 1982.
General characteristics
Class and type	Castle-class corvette
Displacement	1,060 tons
Length	252 ft (77 m)
Beam	37 ft (11 m)
Draught	10 ft (3.0 m)
Propulsion	2 water tube boilers, 1 four cylinder triple expansion steam engine driving a single screw 2,750 hp (2,050 kW)
Speed	16.5 knots (30.6 km/h; 19.0 mph) maximum
Range	9,500 nmi (17,600 km; 10,900 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement	112
Sensors and processing systems	Radar - Type 272 originally, Sonar - Types 144Q and 147B originally
Armament	1 × 4-inch Quick Firing Mk.XIX High Angle/Low Angle combined air/surface gun 1 × Squid Anti-submarine mortar 1 × depth charge rail, 15 depth charges 2 × 20 mm twin anti-aircraft cannon 6 × 20 mm single anti-aircraft cannon

HMS Amberley Castle was a Castle-class corvette of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy. She was named after Amberley Castle near Arundel in West Sussex.

Construction[]

Laid down at S.P. Austin & Son Ltd. shipyard in Sunderland on 31 May 1943 she was launched on 27 November 1943 and commissioned on 24 November 1944.

World War II[]

She served as a convoy escort until the end of the war (escorting 15 convoys in 1945^[1]) when she was put into reserve at Portsmouth until 1952.

Weather ship[]

She was in reserve at Penarth from 1953 until 1957 when she was converted to a weather ship at Blyth in Northumberland and renamed to Weather Advisor in a ceremony on 22 September 1960 at the James Watt Dock, Greenock by Lady Sutton, wife of Sir Graham Sutton, the then director-general of the Met Office.^[2] She replaced the ship known as , which had carried out the role since 1947.^[3]

She served in this role from 28 September 1960 onwards until she was again extensively updated in July 1976 at Manchester dry docks, and renamed Admiral Fitzroy after the British vice-admiral Robert FitzRoy, the first director of the forerunner to the British Meteorological Office.

Fate[]

The ship was finally scrapped at Troon in 1982.

References[]

External links[]

• Weather Adviser at www.weatherships.co.uk, including several pictures.

Publications[]

• Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8.