Visiting RSS Formidable

RSS Formidable, Singapore's first stealth frigate, was in Yokosuka for the international fleet review to celebrate JMSDF's 70th anniversary. Yesterday, the foreign ships were open for ship tours, and Singaporeans living in Japan were also invited to go onboard RSS Formidable. Having served onboard before, I thought I would go back and take a look to see if I can find any familiar faces, and to see if the calligraphy piece (a rush work...) that I wrote for the ship's commissioning is still there. (I have been wanting to rewrite that piece because I am not satisfied with it. I had very little time back then to get it ready, so I didn't really have time to practise and work on composition.)

As the ship is berthed at Y-4 on the JMSDF side of Yokosuka Naval Base, I found (after checking Google Maps) that it can be seen from Anjindai Park, which oversees the basin area of the base. So before dropping by the ship, I thought I would go to the park to see if I can get some pictures.

Well, there is actually a high fence on the seaward side of the park. I tried playing around with aperture to see if I can photograph the ship through the fence, but that didn't work. In the end, I had to try photographing by "feel" as I held the camera high above the fence and aim blind and shoot. I shot some photos in the same way using my phone too.

Making my way from the park to Yokosuka Naval Base, Google Maps brought me to a route that included a road that is off limits to scooters... Vivi can't go along that route, so I had to turn back and make a long detour, losing precious time (the ship tours are open until 4 p.m. with the queues closing at 3:30 p.m., and it was already well past 2 p.m. when I left the park). When I got to the parking area near the base, I made a wrong turn and had to lift my scooter over the curb onto the pathway... spraining my right wrist in the process. Sigh.

I managed to get into base as many people were already leaving.

Although other ships were opened for ship tours, it was getting late, so I headed straight to RSS Formidable, the main purpose of this trip to Yokosuka.

When I got to the queue, it was already closed to the public, but I told the Japanese guy there that I had an invitation from the ship, and he let me into the queue. A few other Singaporeans came in too after me. As luck has it, while queuing, I spotted someone I knew (I worked with him on another ship in the past, and he is now the coxswain of RSS Formidable) so he managed to get me and the rest of the Singaporeans out of the queue and onto the ship.

Going onboard, it was actually a very short tour, with a safety brief at the hangar, followed by a video in the torpedo store about the frigate's ASW capabilities, then the torpedo deck and SSM deck to see the torpedo launcher followed by the Harpoon missiles. Here, I saw another familiar face, someone whom I knew since the time when he first joined the navy. It is nice to see that he has reached a much more senior position now. The bridge was the final part of the tour, where you get to see the 76mm Oto Melara gun, the hatches for the vertical-launch Aster missiles, plus the control consoles for the Typhoon guns. (The GPS display at the aft part of the bridge looks different, a bit smaller than I remember... maybe they changed it.) As usual, photography was not allowed once past the hangar, so I only managed to get a few photos on the flight deck. I also bumped into two more familiar faces at the hangar.

By then, Auld Lang Syne was already playing in the base and they were announcing that the gate will soon be closed, so I had to make my way out of the base. When I got to Vivi, I found that the left mirror was loose... just as I was trying to ride off. In the end, I rode off with a swiveling left mirror, got onto National Route 16, then found a place where I could stop to fix the mirror. I was really fortunate that I kept some tools in the seat compartment.

In the end, I managed to meet part of the goals. I did see some familiar faces, and also managed to talk to the CO and XO (both whom I did not know, as they used to serve in a different part of the navy when they were junior officers). But I did not managed to see if my calligraphy piece is still onboard, we visitors were not allowed below deck (and the piece used to be in the wardroom). Still, it was a satisfying trip to be back onboard after so many years.

I ended the trip will a short detour to a place nearby to get a shot of Mount Fuji at dusk.