A ROYAL Navy warship is coming to Portland tomorrow.

Type 23 frigate HMS Iron Duke is making a three-day visit.

Sailing into port on Friday at 11am, the ship will host invited guests for a capability demonstration in the evening.

This is followed by a weekend of youth group and schools visits, before the ship returns to sea late afternoon on Sunday.

HMS Iron Duke is nearing completion of eight weeks of Operational Sea Training alongside at Devonport and in the Channel.

The visit to Portland is part of that training, ensuring the ship is ready for all eventualities.

In those eight weeks, the ship’s company of over 180 men and women have dealt with simulated war, fires, flood, famine, disasters and intruders, exercising for any eventuality that may occur to a Royal Navy warship on deployment across the globe.

The team at Flag Officer Sea Training have put Iron Duke through her paces, building up the crew’s knowledge, ability and determination to succeed in daily tests, usually starting very early in the morning and finishing very late at night.

With further successes in testing the new Artisan 3D radar, crammed in between the tough training regime, HMS Iron Duke is close to completing the course before returning to her base port of Portsmouth in readiness for deployment later this year.

The thirteen Type 23 – or Duke-class – frigates can typically be found east of Suez, safeguarding Britain's vital maritime trade routes or the nation’s interests in the South Atlantic.

Based in Portsmouth and Devonport, the ships were designed to deal with the Soviet submarine threat – but in the 20 years since the fall of Communism, the frigates have proven their versatility by dealing with virtually every mission imaginable in the four corners of the globe - as well as maintaining that original mission of submarine hunting, aided by the world's finest sonar and either a Merlin or Lynx helicopter.

The current Iron Duke is the third Royal Navy ship to bear the name, launching on March 2, 1991.