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Career
Purchased:	October 1983
Laid down:
Launched:	1981
Commissioned:	12 March 1984
Decommissioned:
Fate:	Active in service as of 2007
Struck:
General characteristics
Displacement:	10,765 tonnes
Length:	112 m
Beam:	20.5 m
Draught:	6.8 m
Propulsion:	Diesel-electric drive; five Nohab-Polar diesel generators; four NEBB motors; one propeller; two 360 degrees azimuth thrusters; two bow thrusters
Speed:	10 knots (19 km/h)
Range:
Complement:	38 additional 147 RN personnel
Armament:	Four Oerlikon 20 mm guns Four 7.62 mm machine guns
Aircraft:	Landing spot for a Westland Sea King, Westland Lynx or CH-47 Chinook helicopter
Motto:

RFA Diligence (A132) is a fleet repair ship of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. She was built by Oesundsvarvet AB Landskrona in Sweden and launched in 1981 as a civilian oil rig support ship,. Diligence first served the RFA during the Falklands War as a civilian owned ship taken up from the trade (STUFT). As MV Stena Inspector, the ship repaired many British vessels. Stena Inspector was purchased by the Government in 1983 for £25 million pounds from Stena (UK) Line and renamed Diligence. She was sailed to the Clyde Dock Engineering facility, where she was converted and military features added, including a large workshop for hull and machinery repairs, supply facilities, accommodation, armaments and magazines and communications fits.

She is designed to provide forward repair and maintenance facilities to ships and submarines operating away from their home ports, so in addition to a variety of workshops she can also provide overside electrical supplies, fuel, water and sullage reception. RFA Diligence provides a large workshop facility for Royal Navy vessels, this is equipped with specialist machinery such as Arc welding equipment, lathes, pillar drills, grinders, band saws and a large store of spares.

Diligence is the Royal Navy's primary battle damage repair unit, and is on short notice to react to developing situations worldwide. One of the key features of the ship's design is her computer-assisted dynamic positioning system which can keep the vessel static in poor conditions, using the ship's range of thrusters and the variable-pitch propeller.

She has a helicopter deck on the roof of her bridge that is large enough to support a CH-47 Chinook.

Another great advantage of the ship is her hull is built to the highest ice class specification, so she can operate anywhere the Navy does.

Diligence has provided damage repair work many times during its lifetime. At the end of the Iran-Iraq War, the Straits of Hormuz were mined, and Diligence supported the multinational minesweeping operation to clear that vital chokepoint. Diligence also helped to repair HMS Southampton after collision damage. The ship returned to the Gulf in 1990 to support operations during the Gulf War by repairing, among others, American ships damaged by mines.

During Operation Ocean Wave 97, Diligence deployed to the Far East as a submarine support ship. The following year, the ship supported 3rd Minecounter Measures Squadron in the Persian Gulf. Following just two weeks in the UK, Diligence departed for the south Atlantic, returning to Faslane in December 1998. Early 1999 saw the ship again deployed to the Falklands region.

2001 saw a large exercise in Oman, and Diligence supported the four MCMVs involved. The ship's next wartime assignment came with the large taskforce deployed against Iraq in 2003. Returning to familiar territory, Diligence supported the largest British fleet deployed since the Falklands War.

Most recently she could be found off Sierra Leone with the Vela task force.

When the ship returned to UK in November 2006 she had the longest deployment of an RFA in recent times. From her departure from Portsmouth it was 5 and half years before she returned home to Portsmouth. In that time she has visited 25 different countries whilst steaming some 150,000 miles (241,000 km), through the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, across the Indian Ocean to India, Sri Lanka and Singapore, the South China Sea to the Philippines and from South Africa across the Atlantic to the Falklands and South America. Many of these Oceans and countries visited 2 or 3 times.

All this work has taken its toll of the 25-year-old ship; her accommodation areas, galley and engine room all need an overhaul. RFA Diligence is to receive a £16m overhaul to extend her lifespan, taking her out of action for the next 12 months. Birkenhead yard Northwestern Shiprepairers and Shipbuilders won the contract to revamp the ship; the deal will sustain 100 jobs on Merseyside. This refit will see RFA Diligence equipped for service through to the middle of the next decade.

• Richard Beedall; Navy Matters report on OMAR