The King George V (KGV) Lock in London’s Royal Docks has very few larger vessel visitors and only occasional visits from from naval vessels (other than for the biennial defence show (Report on DSEI 2021 here) – so it was a welcome return of 3 ships belonging to SNMCMG1 following a similar visit in October 2021.
At the time of the visit to London in February 2023 the vessels assigned to SNMCMG1 comprised of the following ships (the command and group membership is regularly changed to foster interoperability between nations):
The Command Vessel, KNM Nordkapp, travelled further up the Thames to moor alongside HMS BELFAST – it is not known if the failure of the KGV Lock’s outer gate prevented this vessel mooring in the Lock due to the reduction in capacity.
If you are thinking that the name of the German Navy ship sounds familiar or if you noticed the large dog motif on the front of the superstructure these are due to the fact that the vessel is named after a town in Germany from which a notable breed of dog originates.
The following two images of the ships in the KGV Lock were taken through a window from a Tower Block.
A few more shots of the flotilla in the KGV Lock can be seen below:
The tug CHRISTINE attended to be on stand-by to assist the arriving vessels but was not needed.
More information on the NATO Maritime Command can be found here.
Dock, Lock and River Blog (#dlr_blog) 