It's official. HMS Ocean sold to Brazil...

via HeraldScotland.

The Ministry of Defence is selling the Royal Navy’s flagship vessel HMS Ocean to help plug a mammoth financial black hole.

The £84 million sale to the Brazilian navy is due to go ahead next month and Ocean will sail to South America in the summer.

Pressed on the amount of money that would be reinvested from the sale, an MoD spokesman confirmed it expected to yield a £55 million net profit, all of which would be pumped back into naval coffers.

Story here. 

Wow.  The funny thing is that in my mind a few ships in this class would serve the Marine Corps better than the LPD as designed.  If aviation is the new "thing" then this class of ship with a better way to offload ground vehicles (that tiny ramp is a hindrance) would seem ideal.  Making an LPD, a ship optimized to support the ground force, into an "aviation centric" vessel is a fools errand.

But putting that aside, the Brazilians got a steal.  If they're willing to invest a little homegrown tech and money into the thing then they have a winner beyond belief.

I think the Royal Navy will look back and wish for the days of the HMS Ocean in its service.