RFA Gold Rover to make a last trip to Portsmouth after 43-year career

And today, the oldest vessel in naval service, RFA Gold Rover, will be making her final trip to Portsmouth.

The 11,000-tonne support vessel is due to decommission next month – 43 years after first pumping oil into the tanks of a Royal Navy warship.

Proudly flying a paying off pennant, Gold Rover will steam into Portsmouth Harbour this morning, passing the Round Tower just after 9.30am.

She’s the last of five Rover-class ships built for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary in the late 1960s/early 1970s.

Gold Rover completed her last refuelling operation earlier this month, pumping ‘black gold’ into frigate HMS Portland off the west coast of Africa.

Her age – and changing maritime legislation – means she’ll be retired upon her return in favour of the first of the giant new fleet tankers, RFA Tidespring, which has just begun her 16,000-mile journey from South Korea to the UK.

Tidespring is the first of four new super-tankers being built in South Korea. The others are RFA Tideforce, Tiderace and Tidesurge. The 200m-long, 37,000-tonne tankers will carry fuels, oil and fresh water to replenish aircraft carriers and warships, both British and Allied.