HMS Clyde (P257)

HMS Clyde is the tenth ship in the Royal Navy to bear the name. She was launched on 14 June 2006 in Portsmouth Naval Base by VT Group shipbuilders in Portsmouth, England, and is the fourth vessel of the River class and the first of a lengthened variety with a larger displacement of 1,850 tonnes and a 30 mm Oerlikon KCB gun in place of the 20 mm gun fitted to other River-class ships.

Clyde was the first ship built entirely in Portsmouth Naval base for 40 years and has been constructed alongside the bow and superstructure sections for the new Type 45 destroyers Daring and Dauntless. She was named in a ceremony on 7 September 2006 as she had not received a traditional launching ceremony.

HMS Clyde was accepted into the Royal Navy in a ceremony at Portsmouth Naval base on 30 January 2007. The White Ensign was then raised for the first time on the offshore patrol vessel built by VT Shipbuilding. She and her ship's company went through a rigorous series of trials and safety training before undergoing operational sea training off Scotland.

After being commissioned into active service she was sent to the South Atlantic to relieve HMS Dumbarton Castle as the Royal Navy's patrol vessel in the area based in the Falkland Islands. Unlike predecessors in this role Clyde will stay in South Atlantic waters for the foreseeable future, with a contract in place for her to remain in the Falkland Islands until 2018.

In January 2011, the government of Brazil denied HMS Clyde access to Rio de Janeiro in solidarity with the Argentinian cause over the Falkland Islands sovereignty dispute, as Uruguay had done with HMS Gloucester the previous September.