HMS Mersey has been the guard ship for the 180th Port of Dartmouth Royal Regatta.

She was commissioned in 2003 and her purpose is to protect the UK Economic Exclusion Zone, protecting sensitive waters and areas on UK national interest.

Leftenant Henny Looze who comes from Brixham welcomed me onboard in his capacity as duty officer and before my tour we spoke in the Wardroom.

He joined from school at 18 and did his officer training at Britannia Royal Naval College (BRNC) in Dartmouth in 2015.

He told me about some of their recent activities:

“We've been to Aberdeen recently for the Tall Ships Festival where we were guard ship as well as a military attraction.

“We've been up to Belfast and we’re going back there shortly and to Cork as well.

“We recently went to Bergen in Norway as well, so in between doing our job at sea and protecting the UK's waters and areas of interest, we managed to get to some really nice places to have that sense of adventure which is what the Navy's all about.”

Lt Looze then explained a bit about life on board:

“Our ship's slightly different, we work a four week on, two week off, three watch crewing model, so that means that we have a ship's company of about 50 to 60, but only two thirds of that ship's company are on board at any one time, so at the moment we'll be anywhere between 32 and 36 on board.

There’s a big variety of roles:

You've got the Captain, the Executive Officer, myself, the First Lieutenant and the rest of the Wardroom perform various different roles, mainly bridge watch keeping and operations and navigation.

The ship wouldn't run without the mechanical engineers, of which we've got a cadre all the way from Warrant Officer down to our Able Seaman, so all the way through the ranks, and they make up about 10 to 12 of the ship's company.

Their responsibility is to look after the engines, look after our power, look after our water production, and look after any waste that we make as well.

You've got the Weapon Engineers, of which we've got about three or four, and they look at maintaining our weapon systems, radars, navigation systems, and look at anything that's electrical in nature as well.

We've got a galley turning out three meals a day, 24-7, so they're always doing breakfast, lunch, dinner, every day on board with three or four chefs including one almost Michelin star standard.

Finally the Warfare Department or the Seamanship Department concentrate on driving the boats, doing all of the rope work and anything that requires upper deck work basically. “

Lt Looze concluded by saying: “It's been an absolute pleasure to be here for the 180th anniversary of the Royal Regatta.

“It's really nice for Mersey to come back 18 or 20 years after she was last the guard ship for the regatta.

So nice to come back, nice to reconnect with well what is essentially my home area, and I can tell you that all of our sailors have absolutely thoroughly enjoyed the hospitality of Dartmouth,.

“It's been brilliant.”