Photos: How the Royal Marines Board a Ship

After a long break in training due to COVID-19 duties, Royal Marines from 42 Commando and 47 Commando headed into Plymouth Sound to practice maritime interdiction operations – the art of intercepting, boarding and securing vessels suspected of involvement in criminal activities.

Waiting to be boarded: 39,000-tonne naval tanker RFA Tideforce, normally used to keep HMS Queen Elizabeth and her carrier task group topped up with fuel.

Climbing up the side of Tideforce was a return to regular duties for both units as the UK begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed by the Covid pandemic. Teams from 42 Commando, based at Bickleigh just outside Plymouth, helped to run mobile test centres for the virus to help key workers across the south west, including sites in Torbay and Salisbury.

Now that they have been stood down from those duties, the marines can focus on their usual mission – especially as both 42 and 47 Commandos are constantly held in a state of very high-readiness to deploy on operations across the globe.

Images courtesy Royal Navy

Small teams from 42 Commando’s Juliet Company – the Corps dedicated maritime interdiction operators – are trained to secure a suspect vessel. The members of Juliet are well practiced in close quarters combat, as well as mechanical / explosive access and vessel embarkation using either a boat or rapid roping on to a deck from a helicopter.

Once the commandos have secured the suspect vessel, a Royal Navy boarding party of trained sailors comes aboard to conduct the search for anything untoward. They’ve recently been given enhanced search kits as smugglers use increasingly devious methods to hide their illegal cargos.

The combined efforts of the Royal Marines and Royal Navy boarding teams have seized or destroyed more than £150m of illegal narcotics since the beginning of 2019 in a dozen major busts, with the Indian Ocean accounting for all but two of the successes. All the drugs would have funded illicit activities had they reached the streets; in the Middle East, the illegal trade in narcotics is known to fund terrorism.

“Maintaining this level of readiness for boarding operations demands that the unique techniques and procedures needed for success must be regularly exercised in the most arduous conditions,” explained Captain Jack Denniss RM, Operations Officer of 539 Raiding Squadron, 47 Commando’s front-line unit. “Failure to do so could mean that crucial skillsets degrade, and the capability can quickly become compromised."

Teams from Juliet Company are currently deployed in the Middle East with frigates HMS Montrose and Argyll on maritime security operations.

This article appears courtesy of Royal Navy News and may be found in its original form here.