Tankerman

Wokingham Borough Council is close to getting its residents to have to do the same thing.

I have been told by some who served on battleships, that salvos were the normal method of firing the larger guns, 12 inch bore and above. This was for two reasons, firstly in order to reduce the vibration and stress on the ships hull and secondly to obtain a quicker correction of the fall of shot. However if, as at Jutland, the opposing fleet was at a comparatively short range then full broadsides were used to cause the maximum damage. Concerning the use of broadsides I was told by one of the leckys when at Falmouth docks, who was a junior seaman on the Nelson, 9 x 16 inch guns in three triple turrets, was going to fire a broadside, spare hands were distributed throughout the ship. They carried boxes of electric lamps as the terrible vibration from the guns caused the lamps to shatter.

Hi Katy, The speed of the Giulio Cesare was 21.5 knots as built, but she was extensively modernised in the 1930's, this included both new boilers and steam turbines, which raised her speed to over 25 knots. Warspite, and other major warships, were fitted with a device known as an Admiralty Fire Control Table. It was basically an analogue computer which provided the necessary readings of the elevation and deflection of the guns to ensure that the shells landed either at, or close to, the position of the enemy ship. I have had an interest in the naval history of the first half of the twentieth century from a young age, one of my great uncles joined the RN in 1897 and served on various ships, including a Grand Fleet destroyer during WWI, until 1923 when he completed his 22 years service. The years from 1897 to 1901 didn't count towards his pension as he was classed as a boy seaman. When I started my own apprenticeship as an electrician at Falmouth Docks in 1962 quite a few of the leckys had served in the RN either from before or during WWII, my obvious interest resulted in me being given a lot of information about the ships they served on.

Ie the German Navy is in that bad a state Donitz is probably turning as fast as an aircraft engine.

Since she was chasing the Giulio Cesare she was probably firing alternate salvos from just her two forward turrets. The rate of fire of the RN 15 inch gun was between 1 and 2 rounds per minute, depending on the proficiency of the gun crew. I don't know the length of time the battle lasted, but it was probably no more than 30 minutes, so somewhere between 120 and 150 rounds. From memory the maximum life of the barrel of each gun was about 350 full cordite charges. It is sometimes forgotten that the shell and the cordite charge were loaded separately and that the gun had to be returned to the horizontal to reload The sequence, starting from a loaded gun being horizontal, was elevate the gun to the appropriate angle called for by the director, in the case of the Warspite, to a maximum of 30 degrees, fire the shell, bring the gun back to the horizontal, open the breech, insert the next shell then the cordite charges, close the breech, re-elevate the gun.

When I was serving my electrical apprenticeship at Falmouth docks, a very long time ago now, one of the electricians had been on one of the prewar Town class cruisers, the triple turrets were the same as those on HMS Belfast. I can remember him telling me that in action the gun crews were expected to maintain a rate of fire of 10 rounds per minute per gun. This was done with semi hand loading of the shells and hand operation of the breech block. He also told me that the reason the centre gun is mounted further back than the outer guns is that the shell from that gun wasn't affected by the blast from the outer two. Concerning the range of conventional shells. The longest range hit on a ship from another ship is generally believed to be that obtained by HMS Warspite when one of her 15 inch shells hit the Italian battleship Giulio Cesare at a range of 26,000 yards, or approximately 15 statute miles, during the Battle of Calabria in 1940, when both ships were steaming at around 25 knots. I hope this has been of interest.

I have two comments this subject, both in a sense political. The motorway building program really got into gear shortly after the 1955 ASLEF strike brought about the declaration of a state of emergency on May 31st. I believe that the two were interconnected in that the government realised just how easily they, or any government, could be held to ransom by a comparatively small section of the workforce. Richard Beeching is now widely reviled for closing down approximately 4,000 miles of branch and secondary lines, which were not profitable, and never would be. After his departure the Labour government closed a further 2,000 miles of lines, many of which were main lines and which were, or could be, made profitable. It has now been totally forgotten that he was sacked by the Labour government after being accused by them, widely believed to be at the behest of the Transport & General Workers Union, of being pro rail. His crime was to illustrate the fact that a three lane motorway built to take 28 ton trucks cost almost twice that of a two lane motorway built to take 17 tonners. He therefore, correctly, proposed that the road transport industry should bear the extra costs of providing three lane motorways.

If it was anything like those around Paddington in the 1970's you would also get an offer of companionship for at least part of the night and no, I didn't take up any of the offers.

Thanks for letting me know, I'll buy enough Valium tomorrow to last me for the next seven days.

To give some idea of how much momentum large ships have the following might be of interest. In 1968 I did my first trip, as Junior Electrical Officer, on the Ottawa of Trident Tankers. As we had just come out of drydock and the ship's hull was very clean, the Captain was instructed to carry out a test to calculate how long and what distance the ship would take to come to a complete stop. The test was carried out when we were in the doldrums to minimise any external wave action, the ship was ballasted down to her summer full load draft, which equated to 93,000 deadweight tons, to maximise the level of kinetic energy and worked up to her maximum speed of 16 knots. The main engine steam supply was then cut off by tripping the ahead main steam valve to simulate a blackout (complete loss of the electrical supply) and the rudder kept in the dead ahead position. If I remember correctly she travelled just over seven miles and the elapsed time was around one hour. The Ever Given is over twice that tonnage and the hull shape is much finer as the service speed of container ships is in the range of 20 to 25 knots and the figures would be much higher.

In my opinion Common Sense died because the legal profession realised that they could make far more money out of making the 5 Stepbrothers the norm rather than the exception.

From Wikipedia "Admiralty courts assume jurisdiction by virtue of the presence of the vessel in its territorial jurisdiction irrespective of whether the vessel is national or not and whether registered or not, and wherever the residence or domicile or their owners may be. A vessel is usually arrested by the court to retain jurisdiction. State-owned vessels are usually immune from arrest."

I’m happy to agree with letting the lawyers do the squabbling. They’re well practiced at that and as we have both said, they get paid obscene amounts of money to do it.

If you had fully read the statements contained in the article by a legal firm that you posted in reply to my post; where you suggested that I contact them, you would have seen that they specifically state that they had successfully contested the declaration of General Average by the vessel owner, on behalf of cargo owners, in numerous similar cases. My understanding is that if the owner of the vessel declares General Average and the cargo owners successfully contest that declaration in court, then the vessel owner is liable for not only the cargo owners legal fees but also has to compensate them for any loss of income/profit on their goods. If this is incorrect and you quote the judgement where this has been proved incorrect I will be quite happy to apologise. However we can agree on one thing, the legal arguments will go on for a long time and the legal teams involved will become richer.

That's the most likely reason, but it could also because the crew are being questioned about the incident.

Really like this, however since some on here firmly believe that someone who frequents a railway modelling forum cannot have any shipping knowledge, I would like to point out that the container ship is not owned by Evergreen. I know this because the decoration on the bow is that of APL.

I have no reason to ring them because, if I have correctly understood what they have written, they have stated that they can successfully defend the cargo owners against a claim for General Average by the shipowner and/or the operators.

If I have read their statements correctly they are offering legal services to the cargo owners to defend them against a claim of General Average. In this case, in offering their services, they must be, at least, fairly confident of being successful in such an action.

In this case the owners/operators of the ship cannot transfer the blame of costs to the owners of the cargo under the rule of General Average. I've used the quote below to save me a lot of typing. General Average in maritime transport is when losses occur during a vessel voyage, and the Captain has no other option but to declare General Average to sacrifice some of the cargo to save life, vessel or cargos; The cost of the sacrifice is shared proportionately among the stakeholders in the maritime transport. There are four salient features of general average The sacrifice must be extraordinary, and any following damages from the sacrifice is also considered to the General Average Cost. The sacrifice is made intentionally, any accidents that occur is not considered as General Average. There must be a peril to the ship voyage, the Captain has to ascertain that the peril is real and not made up. Actions resulting in General Average must be for the common safety, not for the safety for part of the property involved. General Average Law is 3000 years old and it is a system still applied today, there are no viable alternatives to this practice. Incidentally Flotsam and Jetsam also have defined means in maritime law. Flotsam is cargo which floats or is washed off a ship as a result of storm or sinking, Jetsam is cargo which is deliberately discharged overboard.

Re the census, that's what I've done.. I have lived in the Reading area for many years because I had to make a choice when I left the merchant navy. The choice was between a very uncertain future in the ship repair yard at Falmouth and a very secure well paid future as an engineer surveyor living west of London. I generally visit Cornwall at least twice a year and it always lifts my spirits when, heading west, I cross the Tamar at Launceston as it feels as if I'm arriving home.

One of the problems with the Cornish dialect, which has been dying out for quite a while, is that it varies from place to place. Pronunciation in the west, like Stithians (Stidians) near Redruth, (Re-druth not Red-ruth) where I grew up, can and does vary from that in the east. An example is Perranzabuloe, I pronounce it Perran za boo looe, but I understand that further east it is pronounced Perran zab low. Another example is that in the west names beginning with Tre, the Tre is normally produced separately, Tre-Wdden or Tre-Leven; except where the Tre is followed by an s, for example Trescobeas is pronounced Tresco-bays. It's all a bit of a minefield really, for instance here are some of the villages and towns I can think of quickly. Carnkie (Carn-kye), Manaccan (Man-nac-can), Lostwithel (Los-with-e-l). Another oddity, which I don't know is just found in west Cornwall, is that Porth is only pronounced as such on the end of a name, but Port at the beginning. For example Porthleven is Port-leven, but Perranporth is Perran-porth. My parents, born 1910/11, also had the habit of pronouncing a v as double b, so Porthleven became Port-lebben.

This brings to mind my time at sea when the newly joined fourth engineer, who rapidly realised I was Cornish, told me that he had spent his recent honeymoon in Cornwall at a place called Body Nick. I hadn't heard of such a place and said so, he then said that it was opposite Fo-wey and I realised he was talking about Bodinnick.

Having seen the previous shows I knew that I wouldn't get much else done over the weekend and sure enough I didn't. The quality of the whole weekend's show left no doubt that a tremendous amount of effort must have been expended its production. Thank you to all of you for making that effort.

Yes it did.

Johnster, Firstly please accept my apologies for thinking that your post was politically motivated, the first paragraph of your reply clarified why this isn't so. However I must again take issue with some of the statements in your second and third paragraphs. From the moment that Jellicoe, despite having been badly let down the lack of reports from Beatty regarding the actual position of the High Seas fleet, decided to deploy the Grand Fleet to the east the outcome of the battle was never in doubt. By deploying to the east Jellicoe ensured that his ships would "cross the enemy's T" meaning that the whole firepower of the Grand Fleet would be concentrated on the foremost ships of the High Seas fleet. It should also be remembered that until the Grand Fleet opened fire Admiral Scheer had no idea that the whole of the Grand Fleet was at sea and when he realised it was it caused near panic. Beatty was not the originator of the battlecruiser, it was Admiral "Jackie" Fisher, who became First Sea Lord in 1904 and in ten years turned the RN from a big collection of useless junk manned by Victorian idiots into the modern fleet, manned by officers who had been technically trained in naval the warfare, which fought the sea battles of 1914-18.