RFA Engadine (K08)

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Career (UK)
Name:	RFA Engadine
Ordered:	18 August 1964
Builder:	Henry Robb
Laid down:	9 August 1965
Launched:	16 September 1966
Commissioned:	15 December 1967
Decommissioned:	March 1989. Laid up at Devonport.
Fate:	Arrived Piraeus on 18 February 1990 after sale to Greek owners reportedly for a new service which never materialised and the ship was laid up, name unchanged. Arrived Alang for demolition on 7 May 1996
General characteristics
Type:	Helicopter support ship
Displacement:	8,950 tons (full load)
Length:	179 metres (587 ft)
Beam:	17 metres (56 ft)
Draught:	7 metres (23 ft)
Propulsion:	1 × 5 cylinder Sulzer diesel. One shaft. 5,500 bhp.
Speed:	16 knots (30 km/h)
Complement:	63 RFA + 32 RN + 131 training
Aircraft carried:	4 × Westland Wessex or 2 × Westland Sea King or 2 × Westland Wasp helicopters

RFA Engadine (K08) was a helicopter support ship of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. The need for Engadine was seen in the mid-1960s as more and more helicopters were deployed from Royal Navy aircraft carriers and surface combatants. The ship was ordered in August 1964, from Henry Robb of Leith , and commissioned in December 1967, replacing HMS Lofoten

Engadine was homeported in Portland for its whole career. The most notable events in that twenty-five year span were the 1976 crisis in Lebanon, where she was deployed as part of contingency planning to evacuate British citizens, the Silver Jubilee fleet review in 1977 when she followed HMY Britannia and the Falklands War during which she operated as a helicopter support and refuelling base in San Carlos Water. By the mid-1980s, Engadine was rapidly approaching obsolescence, and so the container ship MV Contender Bezant was purchased for conversion, becoming RFA Argus. Engadine was decommissioned in 1989. Initially she was sold to new owners in Greece where it was intended she would return to service. This came to nothing, and so she was broken up in India in 1996.