USS Trippe ( FF - 1075 ) USS " Trippe " ( FF - 1075 ) was a Knox class frigate of the US Navy , built at Westwego , Louisiana , was commissioned in mid - September 1970 . In July 1971 , following shakedown training in the Caribbean area and a surveillance mission off Haiti , she entered the Boston Naval Shipyard for overhaul and installation of the Basic Point Defense Missile System , which featured short - range " Sea Sparrow " guided missiles in an eight - round launcher on her afterdeck . Trippe was the Navy ' s first destroyer - type ship to receive this later - widespread contribution to shipboard protection against air and missile attack . The first months of 1972 were spent testing her new weapons and participating in exercises . In June the ship passed through the Panama Canal en route to Southeast Asia n waters , where she provided Vietnam War aircraft carrier escort and naval gunfire support services during July and August . Trippe then went to the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf areas , visiting many ports in a region that would see increasing U . S . Navy activity in the coming decades . She returned to the U . S . East Coast in December 1972 , after a deployment that had taken her completely around the World . During an overhaul in 1973 , " Trippe " was refitted to allow her to operate the larger helicopters of the Light Airborne Multi - Purpose System ( LAMPS ) . From August of that year into January 1974 she made her first tour with the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean . A second cruise to the Indian Ocean and Middle East followed in January – May 1975 . Reclassified in mid - year as a frigate , with the new designation FF - 1075 , she spent the last three months of 1975 and the first five of 1976 in shipyard hands . Trippe returned to the Middle East Force in March – July 1977 and went back to the Mediterranean for her second Sixth Fleet deployment in April – October 1978 . The next year she cruised around South American as part of exercise " Unitas XX " and operated off West Africa . The busy frigate made four more Mediterranean deployments during the following decade , in 1982 , 1983 , 1985 and 1987 . Some of her 1983 tour also involved visiting ports in West Africa , the southern Atlantic , and the Indian Ocean . In the mid - ' 80s she was also modernized , receiving a seakeeping - enhancing bulwark on her bow and the Close - In Weapons System . The latter ' s fast shooting radar - controlled 20 mm gun mount was installed on her afterdeck to improve her defenses against cruise missiles . She spent most of the late 1980s and the early 1990s operating in the Caribbean Sea area , with counter - narcotics service taking much of her effort . At the end of July 1992 , " Trippe " was decommissioned and leased to Greece . The Hellenic Navy placed her in commission in April 1993 as " Thraki " , and she was formally sold to that nation in 2001 . In April 1989 , the USS Trippe collided with fleet oiler off the coast of Jacksonville , Florida . A crewmember , Michael MacHado , who served during the collision , indicated of his tour on the Trippe that he “ could not forget colliding with the USS Platte and limping into Charleston with a 18 degree list to starboard . ” USS Trippe was named in honor of Lieutenant John Trippe ( 1785 - 1810 ) , a hero of the Tripolitan War .