HMS Diamond

New Royal Navy Type 45 Destroyer HMS Diamond (D34) is visiting Aberdeen, one of her affiliated cities, this weekend and she was open to the public this afternoon ... and in spite of the weather, the public turned out in force to see her. The queues to get on board were huge, but luckily you waited inside one of the transit so stayed dry. HMS Diamond is the 3rd Type 45 and was lauched in Glasgow in 2007 and will be officially commissioned into the Royal Navy in 2011. The Type 45 programme is costing £6 Billion for 6 vessels, so you're looking at £1 Billion ship here ... which must surely make her the most expensive vessel ever to dock in Aberdeen!

The Type 45 is designed to be "stealthy" and it certainly doesn't look like a typical naval ship ... its mission is air defence and it can engage multiple targets simultaneously ... the operations room looks like something out of a science fiction movie.

Couldn't get a shot of the whole ship from Clipper Quay, so I nipped round to Torry from where this shot is taken. It was a grey, rainy day, so it looks pretty dull.

Know it's nothing to do with this particular Diamond, but I found I couldn't get the old whaling song The Bonnie Ship The Diamond out of my head today :-)

P.S. If anyone wants to go see her, she is going to be berthed in Aberdeen tomorrow, leaving Monday and you'll get good views from Torry.