Ley Class Mine-Hunter
The ships of the Ley class of minesweepers have names were all chosen from villages ending in -ley. Among the Naval services rendered to Great Britain and the Allies during World War II, none were more conspicuously important than the work of British minesweepers and minelayers. The mine-sweeping has been described by those who should know as having been the hardest service in the North Sea during the war.
The Ley class was a class of inshore mine hunter built for the Royal Navy in the mid-1950s.Their work was to locate individual mines and neutralise them. This was a then new role, and the class was configured for working in the shallow water of rivers, estuaries and shipping channels. They were of composite construction, that is, wood and non-ferrous metals, to give a low magnetic signature, important in a vessel that may be dealing with magnetically detonated mines. They displaced 164 tons fully laden, were armed with a Bofors 40 mm gun and were powered by a pair of Paxman diesel engines.
