Last ship to be built in Chatham Dockyard

(Motto: -Veritas de Profound)
TRUTH FROM THE DEPTHS

Launched on 31st July 1951,
by
Lady Poland, wife of Rear Admital . L. Poland.
fitted out 1951 to 1953, and first Commissioned in 1953.
In 1954 she was Adopted by the Town of Gillingham, Kent, before sailing on Survey duties to the West Indies Station.
In September 1955 she was engaged in the claiming of the Island of Rockall in the outer Hebrides, for the British Crown by landing and placing the British Flag on Rockall soil.
Her final Commission was 1969-71, she was decommissioned in Chatham and initially due to be sold, but she was broken up in Bruges in 1976.

H.M.S.Vidal originally had the grid of St. Lawrence , {who had been killed on a grid}. This was because the surveyor Vidal had surveyed the estuary of the river St. Lawrence in Canada. In 1955 his relative , Lady Poland, came to the Vidal and gave the use of the family coat of arms to the ship.Vice Admiral Sir Albert Poland was there with his wife.The old grid coat of arms was on the Arctic certificate handed out in 1955 , after her return from the Arctic survey , based on Tromso.