HMS Abdiel was a Royal Navy minelayer that saw service during the Cold War.

[3] Abdiel was designated by the Ministry of Defence as an "exercise minelayer" and her official role was to train Royal Navy personnel in minelaying operations using test/dummy naval mines, not to lay offensive mines operationally.

[4] Abdiel fulfilled an additional role as a support ship for mine countermeasure vessels.

[6] In 1987 her commanding officer spoke with Raymond Baxter at the 1987 Festival of Remembrance in a segment about Royal Navy modes of communication[7] Abdiel appears in the Royal Navy instructional film 'Minelaying' (Admiralty catalogue no.

Classified as restricted at the time of its release, the film is now unrestricted and available on archive DVD collections and the Internet.