This Quorn is the third RN vessel to bear the name and the last ship of the Hunt-class of minehunter.
In the proverbial social totem pole of warships, minehunters and minesweepers don’t get as much glory as aircraft carriers, destroyers, submarines, and (back in their heyday) battleships. But they’re the unsung heroes of their navies: their services are invaluable considering the danger of naval mines. For example, as Lee M. Hunt noted in a May 1998 article for the U.S. Naval Institute publication Proceedings, in World War II alone, 100,547 offensive naval mines caused 2,665 surface ship and submarine casualties.
A few short years ago, Great Britain’s Royal Navy (RN) bade a fond farewell to one of its most faithfully-serving minehunters, the HMS Quorn (Pennant No. M41). The National Interest now tells the Quorn’s story, lest it is forgotten by history.
Minehunter vs. Minesweeper: What’s the Difference
Before we delve into the nuts and bolts of HMS Quorn’s swan song story, it would behoove us to clarify the difference between a minesweeper and a minehunter. For that clarification, we turn to a September 2021 article by Logan Pierce of DefenseFeeds:
“A minehunter is a ship that searches for, detects, and destroys individual naval mines. Minesweepers, on the other hand, clean mined regions in their entirety without detecting any mines beforehand. Minesweepers are ships that are designed to sweep different types of mines.”
The Basics on the HMS Quorn
The inspiration for this story comes to us via the Navy Lookout channel on MSN, in a video posted on or about April 11, 2025, titled “End of an Era – HMS Quorn Leaves Portsmouth.” There is no audio narration, but the text caption accompanying the video gives this brief description:
“HMS Quorn sets sail from Portsmouth for the final time, marking the end of an era for this Royal Navy minehunter. As she leaves her longtime homeport, this departure honors decades of service and maritime legacy.”
HMS Quorn Brief History and Specifications
Built by Vosper Thornycroft (now known Stateside as VTG; the British part was integrated into Babcock International Group plc in the early 2010s), HMS Quorn was launched on January 23, 1988, sponsored by Lady Rosemary Thompson, and commissioned in 1989.
This Quorn is the third RN vessel to bear the name and the last ship of the Hunt-class of minehunter (out of thirteen total built). Quorn has the following specifications and vital stats (courtesy of the RN official info page and the Naval Technology website):
- Displacement: 725 tons
- Hull Length: 60 meters (196.8 feet)
- Beam Width: 10.5 meters (34.4 feet)
- Draught: 2.2 meters (7.21 feet)
- Propulsion: Two 1.42MW Ruston-Paxman 9-59K Deltic diesel engines driving two shafts; Deltic 0.582MW 9-55B diesel provides pulse generation and auxiliary power
- Speed: 17 knots (31.4 km/h; 19.5 mph)
- Range: 1,500 nautical miles
- Crew Complement: Five commissioned officers and forty-five enlisted sailors
- Armament:
Among Quorn’s assignments during its Royal Navy service:
HMS Quorn was decommissioned by the RN on December 14, 2017, after twenty-eight years of faithful service.
Where to from Here?
Upon further review (something the Naval Lookout video somehow didn’t bother to mention), HMS Quorn, instead of being sent to the scrapyard, found a new lease on life. Quorn joined the Lithuanian Naval Forces in order to bolster NATO maritime capability in Europe.
In April 2020, Lithuania purchased the vessel, redesignating it as the M55 (new actual name TBD). In July 2022, British shipbuilding company Harland & Wolff’s Appledore site in the U.K.’s southwest was awarded a £55 million (around $65 million) contract to regenerate and restore the vessel to accommodate Lithuanian Navy requirements. This restoration project is expected to support 100 jobs at the shipyard.
About the Author: Christian D. Orr
Christian D. Orr was previously a Senior Defense Editor for National Security Journal (NSJ) and 19FortyFive. He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He has also been published in The Daily Torch, The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security, and Simple Flying. Last but not least, he is a Companion of the Order of the Naval Order of the United States (NOUS). If you’d like to pick his brain further, you can ofttimes find him at the Old Virginia Tobacco Company (OVTC) lounge in Manassas, Virginia, partaking of fine stogies and good quality human camaraderie.
Image: Wikipedia.
