HMS Mermaid (F76)

History
KD Hang Tuah catches the morning sunlight while moored alongside at Pulau Labuan on 15 September 2007.
Ghana
Name:	Black Star
Builder:	Yarrow Shipbuilders, Scotstoun
Yard number:	2284
Fate:	Order canceled after Kwame Nkrumah deposed in February 1966
United Kingdom
Launched:	29 December 1966
Renamed:	HMS Mermaid
Commissioned:	16 May 1973
Fate:	Transferred to Royal Malaysian Navy, April 1977
Malaysia
Name:	KD Hang Tuah
Namesake:	Hang Tuah
Acquired:	April 1977
Status:	in active service as training ship in Frigate Squadron 21
General characteristics
Type:	Type 41/Type 61 frigate
Displacement:	2,300 long tons (2,337 t) standard
Length:	103.5 m (339 ft 7 in)
Beam:	12.2 m (40 ft 0 in)
Draught:	4.9 m (16 ft 1 in)
Propulsion:	8 × 16-cylinder diesels, 14,400 shp (10,738 kW), 2 shafts
Speed:	24 knots (28 mph; 44 km/h)
Complement:	210
Sensors and processing systems:	Plessey AWS1 air search radar Decca 45 radars Graseby Type 170B Type 174 hull mounted sonar UA-3 EW intercept
Armament:	(as built) 2 x 4 inch Mk 16 guns 4 × 40 mm Bofors gun (as refitted 1995-7) 1 × Bofors 57 mm gun 2 × 40 mm Bofors gun
Aviation facilities:	Aft helicopter platform

KD Hang Tuah is a frigate operated by the Royal Malaysian Navy since 1977. She was built in the United Kingdom, originally for the Ghana Navy, but was launched and completed as a private venture, before being purchased by the Royal Navy in 1972. She served for five years as HMS Mermaid (F76) before being purchased by Malaysia, where she replaced another ex-British frigate also called Hang Tuah. She became a training ship in 1992 and was refitted to replace obsolete weapons and machinery.

Hang Tuah was a singleton vessel, originally built for Ghana. It was to have been named Black Star and to have functioned as the flagship of Ghana's navy as well as the presidential yacht for Kwame Nkrumah, the President of Ghana. Built by Yarrow Shipbuilders on the River Clyde in Scotland, the new frigate was still on the slipway, when in February 1966, a military coup in Ghana ousted President Nkrumah; the new government cancelled the order due to the excessive cost of around GBP 5 million. Yarrow decided that the best course was to complete the ship in the hope that she could be sold to another navy; she was launched without any ceremony in December 1966.

The frigate was completed in June 1968 and kept at anchor for several years awaiting a buyer. In 1971, the newly elected Conservative government decided that by purchasing the ship for the Royal Navy, they could provide an indirect subsidy to a vital shipbuilder. Accordingly, in April 1972, she was transferred to Portsmouth Dockyard and then to Chatham Dockyard, to be refitted to bring her up to operational standards.

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Wikipedia