Bon Accord

Angus, Now there's a coincidence! My Grandfather was AB in WAR NIZAM from 28/3/43-10/6/43 and 5/7/43-6/1/44 so he was onboard when your father was picked up. He's long since passed on unfortunately, but thankyou for the picture as I've never seen one of her before.

One frigate and one RFA permanently on station in the PG/IO area provides extremely limited protection of any kind, particularly when it's considered that their primary purpose there is to ensure there's a standing force (of some description) should the natives get out of line.

This talk of automation does make me raise a wry smile when I think of some of the locations where there is little to no chance of it being workable for many, many years yet. Take the attached photograph as an example. Whilst the island in question has (to an extent) embraced containerisation, there is still no suitable wharf and so containers - together with all the other "general" - is transshipped to a lighter and then taken to the beach where it is landed ashore by a suitably positioned road crane. I wonder what the time and motion people from the big boxboat lines would make of this? I certainly know what ships I'd rather be on! ANVIL POINT, Clarence Bay, Ascension Island, 17/07/12.

As reported today: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-40910087 This wasn't a security "incident" per se, but it's a perfect example of the kind of "low tech" event that is our greatest security threat both now and in the future and it's something that's near impossible to guard against at the moment.

It's something that is oft mentioned, but oddly enough protection of our sea lanes and trade routes is not a priority for the RN and hasn't formed a core part of strategic RN thinking since the 1960s, principally because we don't have the resources to even contemplate undertaking much more than a toothless window dressing exercise in that regard AND be able to fight a war at the same time. It's also the generally accepted case that the scenario of trade routes requiring protection would inevitably occur within the context of a large scale/global war - as it did during the previous two occasions, something we're incapable of fighting conventionally. During the Cold War period the RN was geared up to dealing with very specific threats both from the Iron Curtain and beyond, and ships/manpower were focussed on those threats - much the same applied pre war but within a wider context - e.g. building certain classes of ship specifically to counter specific enemy vessels or specific anticipated tactics. Since 1990 that has of course changed and coupled with the varied but similar small scale conflicts we've been involved in since Gulf War 1 I still don't think the MOD in general has really been able to decide just what it should look like, what it wants to be and importantly how it wants to achieve these things. On of the main problems with that has been a total inability of those within Westminster to realistically appreciate our place in the world and where it will be in years to come and so provide militaristic context to the MOD - the "glory" of Empire still casts a long psychological shadow. Continual cutbacks in defence spending have only made things worse. Hence there have been countless cases where essential equipment of low or modest cost is being denied to servicemen because of budget problems, yet at the very same time effective blank cheques are being written for "big ticket" high profile projects (e.g. carriers and Trident) which make those of flag rank and politicos collapse over each other in jingoistic euphoria, but which don't actually help to deal with the threats and responsibilities we're facing now and which we know we shall continue to face in the medium to long term. The RN regularly run a 5 day course for MN Senior Officers which is spent mostly in Portsmouth but includes a visit to the SBS (and a night spent at their HQ) but also a day at sea with FOST, as well as various briefings etc. At the last one I attended about 5 years ago a question was asked during a threat briefing about trade route/merchant vessel protection, specifically because Gulf of Aden piracy was very much still a hot topic. It was noted by many that the warships of many other nations were present and were actively escorting their own merchant ships in pre-organised convoys, yet the RN was almost permanently absent which seemed somewhat unfathomable considering how much UK trade flows through that area. The response from the senior RN officers conducting the briefing was that merchant vessel protection doesn't really figure on the RN priority list, but even if it did a suitable vessel simply couldn't be spared to do so, indeed the point was made that one of the few times that a vessel was detached there specifically for anti piracy work, they had to divert the Falklands Guardship (a Type 23 frigate) from the South Atlantic to the Gulf of Aden, thereby leaving the Falklands guardship/patrol duties in the hands of a Bay class RFA! Now that's the kind of thing that falls into the "you couldn't make it up" category, but which is sadly typical.

The point though, is that even with two new carriers that objective will still not be met and indeed the UK has not been able to meet that objective for near on 70 years. Of course the other question is just who/what these ships are supposed to be defending us from - carriers are of little use defending homeland (that's what the Crabs are for) and there's very few foreign possessions these days that require defending either. The above photographs are interesting when you consider that for the RN to simply have enough men to send a carrier (even on trials) and two T23 to sea for a photo op means other ships are short of men and can't do the same due to personnel shortages - something which is rapidly approaching critical mass within the senior service.

Port Chalmers before the box boats. The Port boat in view is the Wellington. The buildings in the background are common to this and Steve's photograph on the previous page. The hulk in the background was a wooden hulled cargo ship named BROXTON which had been damaged in poor weather and never made it further than the Port, she ended her days as a coal hulk and a fender for ships going into the old drydock, which is just in view in the background. All of this is container storage/berths today. Regarding alcohol limits at sea, I remember a fleet circular (which I think originated with China Nav) from circa 1970 when the idea of recommended weekly limits was first raised by the medical profession. It's long lost of course, but I remember the first few lines near word perfect because we framed it and hung it in the bar: Alcohol and the Seafarer "The Medical Panel of the General Council of British Shipping have been looking into this matter, and we think it may be worth while to pass on their comments to you. They have concluded that a weekly consumption of more than thirty five pints of beer or two bottles of gin may pose a significant hazard to health in the longer term. You may be surprised by these modest quantities. None the less all seagoing staff are advised to consider these recommendations with regard to their alcohol consumption." Changed days now.

OBOs? You poor fellow. Your last picture looks suspiciously like Port Chalmers after the inner basin had been filled in and before they added more portainer cranes. Chicks is just out of shot to the left....

Steve, That geared bulkie in the first photo looks similar to the early versions of the "Freedom" type Liberty ship replacements that seemed to mostly appear from the Japanese yards in the 60s and 70s, was she one of them? I'm trying to work out just how that ramp with the wagon worked!

There was a Master in Bank Line who'd been a BI apprentice during the war and had a hell of a time of it - I think he was torpedoed by the Germans in the Atlantic and then much later on was captured by the Japanese and ended up in Changi for a few years. His way of dealing with it all was the bottle and he was well known as having a habit of appearing on the bridge at some ungodly hour shouting at the OOW "two torpedoes 4 points to starboard, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?". Assuming he was happy with the answer he received he'd then disappear off again to his cabin and wouldn't be seen again for days. The poor soul eventually totally lost the plot on a voyage to Aus and had to be evacuated ashore where he was then institutionalised - this being in the early 80s I think. An old boy I knew (Donkeyman) was torpedoed twice, the first time they all made it but the second time he was one of only three survivors. I remember his wife telling me that every year on the anniversary of the latter sinking he always suffered from horrendous nightmares such that to prepare for it he'd move into the spare room just for that night and lock the door. This kept happening until he passed away 11 years ago. It's sad to think of how many them continued suffering long after the war finished.

One of those tit for tat tales of barbarism regularly swapped with the Germans perhaps?

She didn't sink that U boat, it was scuttled by it's crew. However those aren't the only examples: Iin 1915 the steam collier THORDIS rammed U6 in the North Sea. Also in 1915 UC2 was rammed and sunk by the steamer COTTINGHAM. In 1917 BRITISH TRANSPORT rammed U49 and then sank it with gunfire in the Bay of Biscay. Again in 1917 UC36 was rammed and sunk my MOLIERE in the Bay of Biscay. In 1918 the Clyde steamer QUEEN ALEXANDRA (1912-1958) rammed and sank UC-78 off Cherbourg. Later in 1918 GREEN ISLAND rammed and sank UB119 off Rathlin Island.

Aye, oil majors and their target led BS - as if it meant anything meaningful. I think I've been made redundant (in the proper sense) and 'not being asked back' (i.e. was too expensive because of my nationality) a good half dozen times now. Que sera sera. On the flip side, after my final fling with tankers in the early part of the century I immediately returned to employment with Andrew Weirs and ended up on the MOD chartered ships they managed. For a good few years pretty much everyone onboard those ships was a refugee of some description: Bank Line/Cable and Wireless/Mobil Tankers/P&O/RFA/Various Ferries had all made people redundant so we all moved across. Since it was a virgin company it was mayhem for the first few years because everyone wanted to do things as per their previous employer, however it did all settle down eventually. They were great ships with great people and truly were the Indian Summer of the non-RFA MN as they were the last ships to be UK flag/UK built/UK crowd/UK owners. I remember one trip I was there that amongst the 4 senior officers alone there counted no less than 21 companies between us: Bank Line, Ben Line, Blue Star Line, BUE, Cable & Wireless, Calmac, Clan Line, Cunard, BP, Elder Dempster, Glen Line, Mobil, OCL/P&O Containers, Port Line, RFA, Shell Tankers, Union Castle Line, United Baltic Co, Union Transport, Whitco and Worldwide Shipping.

Bob Horton wasn't it? I seem to remember he was properly hated within the company. I think he later joined the BR board and then Railtrack.

Mark, I didn't know Runcimans had bought Gibsons, how long did that last? I know they're still (just) involved in the industry as they own a couple of container feeders but they have outside management, as it would seem the company is just an investment vehicle these days. Their ships do have names ending in "....moor" however. Weirs managed a couple of them for them for a while, I think GLENMOOR was the last one.

There was quite a few of that class. In addition to those you've mentioned there was also Renown, Trident, Norness plus a clutch of them for French BP and the Iranians. Trident/Norness were bareboat chartered from P&O and had short BP careers, although they were identical to the other ships. The surviving BP ships all had major life extension projects undertaken circa 1990, however Renown (which was in the worst condition) went to scrap in '94. Odd man out was BRITISH RESPECT which although having an "R" name was very different to the other ships in terms of hull and accommodation but otherwise similar - she had come from another Japanese yard, Kawaski I think. She was sold off in '93 but did last until the millennium with other owners. Respect was the one which was bombed up the Gulf in '87 and also represented BP 10 years earlier at the Silver Jubilee fleet review. A video of the Renown's final voyage (made for BP) has recently appeared on Youtube, see here:

Weren't those Sulzers the type with the rotary exhaust valves? Seem to remember scavenge fires galore when I sailed on a ship with them.

Blown air reefers are a blast from the past - I wonder what happened to all the "Frosties"? Going back down the pit must have been something of an ordeal as I seem to remember most of them were effectively ships entertainment officer (with liver problems to match), that is once the Sparkies had met their demise.

Weren't they originally intended for a specialised trade? I can't remember exactly, but something involving fruit in the Pacific springs to mind as I do believe these ships had enormous reefer capacity. I knew a bloke who was Master in one (can't remember which) for final build and trials and he had very high opinion of these ships. Unfortunately Maersk didn't have a comparable opinion of their employees as he was made redundant shortly afterwards during one of their regular purges of the remaining Brits and Western Europeans from the fleet.

Circa 300 tonnes of fuel a day wasn't it at 30 knots? The numbers seem crazy now of course, but what a sight these ships were when they hurtled up/down the Minch trying to dodge poor weather. Never to be seen again! One of my oppos was "Diamond D" from 67-74 and he did a couple of trips in them before shifting to Calmac - where he remains as Senior Master at the age of 67!

Speaking of the oil crisis, BP had a class of steam VLCC appear not long after the market dropped like a stone and there was then no work for them. Some went straight from the builders (Mitsubishi) to layup in Brunei where they remained for nearly a decade before entering service. Circa '82, someone in Big Panic House took notice of what was going on in other companies and decided it'd be a great idea to re-engine one of these nearly new ships from steam to diesel and that this would be used as a prototype for the rest of the class. The good ship BRITISH RESOURCE was chosen as she was one of those which had sailed directly from the builders to layup in late '75. Towards the back end of '82 BP was flush with cash after heavy involvement in the Falklands adventure and the old Racehorse was then towed back to Nagasaki to be re-engined. Conversion work entailed removal of the steam turbine, dropping in a thumping great diesel and little else. All steam auxiliaries and the two original massive boilers were retained and since the sterntube of a steamship is on an incline, rather than rebuild the sterntube they simply mounted this cathedral of a diesel on stilts with a flexible coupling to the inclined shaft. The result was an engineering nightmare, albeit an efficient one in comparison to her sisters as daily fuel consumption had gone down from something like 200+ tonnes per day to circa 60-70 (I think). The huge expense involved and the subsequent experience with the Resource convinced the company to leave the other members of the class as steamships and they remained that way until the end - which was 1999/2000. Because she was basically a steamship with a diesel, there were two sets of engineers onboard - one crowd to look after the steam plant and the other to look after the diesel. That wasn't the only problem. After several years in layup some bod in HO decided to check whether the tanks were still in good condition. The order went out to the layup crew to gas free the tanks ready for inspection, as they had been inerted with flue gas during the delivery voyage. Duly inspected - and found to be in perfect condition - there was then no means of inerting the tanks again, so they were left full of nice moist tropical air for a few more years. When eventually she was reactivated for the trip back to Japan to be re-engined, sheets of rust fell from the tank structure forming a deep layer on the tank bottoms. The shipyard offered to clean this out and re-coat the tanks whilst the engine work was being done, but BP management decided not to spend the money with the intention of cleaning the rust out using ship's staff on the ballast voyage. Needless to say, an urgent cargo came up leaving no time for the clean out operation and a full cargo of crude was then loaded on top. This then caused terrible problems during the cargo discharge - surprise, surprise. Additional crew were engaged for the ballast voyage and attempts made to clean the rust/oil/wax out at sea. It literally took years to dig it all out. I think it was on the Resource that when the Engineering Superintendent visited one trip he had a whinge at the Chief Engineer that the planned maintenance schedule was desperately behind where it should be. The C/E - who wasn't know for his tact - replied "we haven't got time for ******* planned maintenance, we're too busy dealing with the bloody emergencies!". Happy ships though, if hard work. This is her towards the end of her life, once BP had reverted back to their 1920s funnel colours. In the Channel for a company photocall. Quote why someone wanted a photograph of her is anyones guess: Deck cricket - a favourite on Saturday afternoons at sea. In comparison, BRITISH RELIANCE was one of the best of the class and did of course remain a haven for all the steam queens until the demise of these ships at the millennium. The old funnel on the Reliance, this was from the mid 60s rebranding/corporate image. The Reliance being overtaken on the approaches to the Perishin' Gulf circa 1998 - these ships were only good for about 12 knots, downhill and with the wind behind you. Loaded draft was circa 22 metres and deadweight about 270,000 tonnes. On all crude ships - not just the decrepit ones - when it's time for drydock the tanks have to be cleared of all the sludge/rust/wax that's accumulated at the bottom over the years. It was favourite to undertake this task in either the Gulf or Singapore (nice and hot) whereupon hundreds of native labourers would arrive on the ship and descend the 30 odd metres of near vertical ladders to the bottom of the tanks armed with shovels and buckets to dig out all the gunk - this would sometimes go on for weeks and was of course thoroughly unpleasant. This is an R boat on completion of tank digging, all those bags on deck held about a cwt of sludge.

Regarding steam railmotors, is there not a GNSR example preserved at Ferryhill?

Shameless opportunism on your part Chris... P.S. Is there any chance you could put in a good word for a J37 with Jason? The princely sum of two bob is yours if you can make it so.....