Mistral

This morning the French Navy amphibious assault ship Mistral docked across the pier from us. She is HUGE, and very cool. She is 199 meters long (compared to our 151 meters), has a crew of 160 (compared to our 400 plus) and only 2 operating rooms in her 69 bed hospital (compared to our 6 ORs in a 78 bed hospital); she can cruise at 19 knots (compared to our 12) whilst carrying 16 helicopters, 4 barges and 2 landing craft and any number of tanks or armoured cars and infantry. Hopefully we'll get a tour onboard before she sails at the end of the week. Click on cutaway deck-plan below to enlarge. Olly