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| View from the command bridge |
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Defender History
As brief summary for now: Defender was built in the mid seventies for the Sulton of Oman as a fast attack vessal,
built in Lowestoft, she was originally named 'Al Majihad' and served for almost 20 years before being kindly donated back
to Lowestoft in 2001 as a display of the towns ship building history.
She was originally armed with a 76 mm canon on the forward deck and a 20mm gun to the rear of the funnel giving
her 360 degree protection. You can see what she looked like on the plan and I will try and get a photo of her in service.
She is powered by 2 huge 16 cylinder engines, one of which does currently need some repair work.
She is 127 ft long, 22 ft wide and still has an interesting mixture of arabic and english instructions inside.
| Colchester made relay box |
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A lot of the original control and comms equipment is being removed and the owners are willing to sell the parts to pay
towards her refurbishment, so if your a collector or would like to own part of a warship please get in touch! All secret military
spec equipment has already been removed, but there are still a lot of other interesting switch panels for the weapons systems
through to step up and step down transformers that no longer have a purpose onboard.
Email Seylec if their is anything you may be interested in, we will forward the owners with your details.
| Comms stack for sale |
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| One of many Marconi Marine internal comms sets |
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| Forward gun turret ring |
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Lowestoft local Joe Capp has some nice pictures of the Defender (See links) before it came to the Basin. Nice site he
has got as its like mine and covers what he has an interest in and about his local area.
A regular question is what is she going to be converted to? Well the owners have asked to keep that secret for
now!
Most common thought is that she was going to be used for the local sea scouts which is not going to happen, but if the
Plymouth comes to Maldon, that is part of the plan for her. A few of you may remember the old MTBs at the prom the scouts
used to have (have a look on the Military vehicle page).
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