HMS Tyne is a built by Vosper Thornycroft in Southampton for the Royal Navy to serve as a fishery protection unit within the United Kingdom's waters along with her two sister ships and . All three were commissioned into service in 2003 to replace the five older s. Tyne is the sixth Royal Navy ship to carry the name and was featured in the first episode of the BBC series Empire of the Seas, "How the Navy Forged the Modern World, Heart of Oak", presented by Dan Snow. Construction The first of her class, Tyne was built by Vosper Thornycroft at its Woolston, Southampton shipyard in 2001. Following construction, she was launched on 1 July 2002 with an expected handover to the Royal Navy's Fishery Protection Squadron by November. By January 2003, she had completed the first stage of her sea trials in the Solent. The first three River-class ships Tyne, Severn and Mersey were the first ever privately funded vessels received by the Royal Navy on charter. They were chartered for five years, after which the Ministry of Defence could either purchase them outright or return them to VT. Operational history Tyne made her first operational fishery protection patrol between January and February 2003. In January 2004, having been on fishery protection duties, she helped coordinate a search and rescue following the capsizing of French fishing trawler off the coast of Cornwall. In September 2012, the Royal Navy purchased Tyne and her sister ships Severn and Mersey, having previously operated them on lease. They had a remaining service life of 11 years. Aside from her day-to-day fishery protection duties, Tyne has occasionally been called upon to undertake escort roles in the UK Area of Interest. Two such examples occurred in the autumn of 2016 when she was twice assigned to escort Russian warships through the English Channel. In March 2017, it was announced that Tyne would be manned by personnel usually assigned to s to allow her crew to transfer to the Batch 2 River-class in build in Glasgow. Decommissioning and reactivation In March 2018, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Defence Guto Bebb revealed that £12.7M had been allocated from the EU Exit Preparedness Fund to preserve Tyne and her two Batch 1 sister ships, should they be required to control and enforce UK waters and fisheries following the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union. In May 2018, the ship