Hermenegildo Capelo - Missions Carried Out

Frigate Ex-NRP Hermenegildo Capelo F481

Hermenegildo Capelo - Missions Carried Out

The "Hermenegildo Capelo" was the second frigate in a group of four ships ordered in 1964 by the Portuguese Navy: "João Belo", "Hermenegildo Capelo", "Roberto Ivens" and "Sacadura Cabral".

The four ships were ordered from a French shipyard in Nantes after the project to buy ships of the "Commandant Rivière" class, which were versatile and robust ships.

Interesting Facts

The "Hermenegildo Capelo" crossed the Equator almost 60 times.

Over the course of almost 30 years, the ship sailed for approximately 40,000 hours, the equivalent to four and a half years at sea.

The ship has seven levels and more than 300 compartments.

The snake depicted on the coat of arms belongs to the Naja species, also known as a Capelo, and is from Africa and South Asia.

In the 1980s, the "Hermenegildo Capelo" was the first Portuguese Navy ship to take on female sailors- 15 Servicewomen.

"Hermenegildo Capelo" has been used as a name twice on a Portuguese Navy ship.

In 1916, the declaration of war by Germany made Portugal realise how mediocre its Navy was, and this was the reason why forty ships of various types were seized and/or requisitioned, and were incorporated into the Navy after being armed.

It was during the war that the first Portuguese Republic Navy ship appeared with the name Hermenegildo Capelo, a former trawler (named "Maria Luíza II") transformed into a minesweeper. Due to it being equipped with a strong winch to enable it to get into the net, the trawlers were easily converted for military purposes and transformed into minesweepers, with the winch used to tie up the cables; of the eleven trawlers requisitioned, eight were transformed into minesweepers due to this.

Each one of the four frigates of the "João Belo" class was decorated with a work by the French painter Roger Chapelet (1903-1995), an artist who was commissioned by the former Navy Minister, Admiral Quintanilha Mendonça Dias, to paint four works - "Funchal", "Lisboa", "Coimbra" and "Ribeira do Porto"; and while it was still in Nantes, the "Hermenegildo Capelo" was given the first choice and opted for "Ribeira do Porto".

Some foreign ports visited

Nantes; Peristyle (France); Cadiz; Spithead (England); Portsmouth (England); Brest (France); Porto Grande de São Vicente (Cape Verde); Ana Chaves (São Tomé); Cabinda (Angola); São Tomé; Lourenço Marques; Las Palmas; Malaga; Barcelona; Cape Verde; Rio de Janeiro; Bahia; Toulon (France); Cartagena; Nacala (Mozambique); Mtwara (Tanzania); Kiel (Germany); Santa Cruz de Tenerife; Salvador da Bahia; Tangier; Scotland; Wilhelmshaven (Germany); Rotterdam; Norway; Le Havre (France); Brunsbuttel (Germany); La Coruña; Casablanca.

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