SUTHERLAND Ready – The Type 23 Frigate SUTHERLAND have relieved sister ship WESTMINSTER  in the Indian Ocean after some final boarding party training off Crete and a passage through the Suez Canal.     Four weeks after departing Plymouth, 'The Fighting Clan', is in the operational theatre, where the SUTHERLAND will spend the rest of 2012.      The Type 23 Frigate passage to the Red Sea has been used to update the crew's training, including gunnery exercises off Gibraltar, and final sensor checks and boarding team exercises in Souda Bay, (Crete).    Souda Bay is the NATO facility in the Mediterranean known as FORACS (Naval Forces Sensor and Weapon Accuracy Check Sites) which tests the myriad of sensors, communications, radars and sonars.     It is also home to the Maritime Interdiction Operational Training Centre, which features a former Hellenic Navy training ship, the ARIS, now used to allow visiting ships' companies to hone their board and search skills.   The embarked Royal Navy and Royal Marines boarding team on SUTHERLAND took their training to the next level using 'Simunition' (simulated ammunition), which possesses most of the characteristics of the real thing, without being lethal, carrying out vessel clearance drills and practising approaching pirate vessels.   The Simunition guns - characterised by their distinctive blue colour - might look like toys, but the intensive three day course that the boarders were put through has ensured they are 'confident that they can deal with whatever lies ahead.