RMAS ''Lodestone'' (A115) was a
''Magnet''-class Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...
degaussing
Degaussing, or deperming, is the process of decreasing or eliminating a remnant magnetic field. It is named after the gauss, a unit of magnetism, which in turn was named after Carl Friedrich Gauss. Due to magnetic hysteresis, it is generally not ...
ship. She was completed in 1980 by the
Clelands Shipbuilding Company
Clelands Shipbuilding Company was a leading British shipbuilding company. The company was based in Wallsend was nationalised by the British Government. It was founded in 1864 by John and Thomas Cleland, and operated until it was acquired by Swan ...
.
The ''Magnet''-class was developed to replace the
''Ham''-class minesweepers that had been converted for degaussing. They are 828
gross tonnage
Gross tonnage (GT, G.T. or gt) is a nonlinear measure of a ship's overall internal volume. Gross tonnage is different from gross register tonnage. Neither gross tonnage nor gross register tonnage should be confused with measures of mass or weig ...
(GT) and have a top speed of 14
knots
A knot is a fastening in rope or interwoven lines.
Knot or knots may also refer to:
Other common meanings
* Knot (unit), of speed
* Knot (wood), a timber imperfection
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* ''Knots'' (film), a 2004 film
* ''Kn ...
. They measure 55m x 12m x 4m.
''Bleu de Nîmes''
In 1997 she was sold to an Italian millionaire and towed initially to
Devonport for conversion to a luxury yacht,
the ''Bleu de Nîmes'' (IMO 7813913).
The extensive rebuild in Turkey was completed in 2005. Another rebuild in Italy completed in 2020 increased her length by 16 metres to .
In February 2022 she was chartered by the government of
Mauritius
Mauritius, officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island country in the Indian Ocean, about off the southeastern coast of East Africa, east of Madagascar. It includes the main island (also called Mauritius), as well as Rodrigues, Ag ...
for
a fifteen day expedition to the
Chagos Archipelago
The Chagos Archipelago (, ) or Chagos Islands (formerly , and later the Oil Islands) is a group of seven atolls comprising more than 60 islands in the Indian Ocean about south of the Maldives archipelago. This chain of islands is the southernmo ...
following international court rulings that Mauritius is sovereign there.
See also
*
RMAS ''Magnet'' (A114)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lodestone (A115)
Magnet class degaussing ships of the Royal Navy
1979 ships