HISTORIC SHIPS

I came across article about the famous sloop HMS Wellington that is moored in the Thames on an american website TMCnet.when i was looking for something else.

I thick all of us who have walked along the Thames Embankment would have seen her.

I have a book of her wartime experiences written by an AB who served on her at that time.

[April 22, 2006] 

Saving a ship for the future

(Lloyds List Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)Viewpoint

White painted and smart, she lies stemming the ebbing tide in a permanent mooring on London's Embankment,

a few yards from Temple underground station.

At high water springs she looms over the stream of traffic thundering past. At low water she seemingly retreats with the dark waters into the river, the gangway steep and the mooring chains tight as the hull groans on her fenders.

The Headquarters ship Wellington never goes anywhere but still retains the life of the warship she once was. Below decks you can hear the beat of passing propellers and with the bigger pleasure craft, or the gravel barges, she shivers and rocks at her moorings.

Shut your eyes, if the meeting is a little tedious, and you can imagine yourself at sea again.

Wellington has become a landmark in the London river, pointed out by the running commentaries aboard the passing pleasure boats, although their skippers are not always strictly accurate.

'On the right 'and side of the ship you will see HMS Wellington, a club house for old captings,' was one I heard a few years ago as 50 pairs of eyes scoured the decks to see if any of the old salts were taking their afternoon constitutional, parrots on their shoulders.

This year the headquarters and livery hall of the Honourable Company of Master Mariners is 72 years old, a very good age for a lightly built warship and something of a tribute to the dockyard mateys in Devonport who built her for the Royal Navy in 1934.

She was classed as a sloop like her sailing predecessors, a small, handy, lightly armed maid of all work for the Admiralty, designed for distant patrol lines and extended duties abroad.

And for her first commissions HMS Wellington was about as far away as it is possible to be, patrolling the Pacific islands and the regions around New Zealand in what must have been an idyllic lifestyle in the relaxed years of the pre-war navy and far-distant stations.

Summoned home again as the war clouds gathered over Europe, the ship was given her coat of dazzle-painted Atlantic grey and sent to sea in the very different environment of the North Atlantic, six hard years of relentless danger on convoy escort duties.

At only 1,256 tons displacement she was a little ship for that huge, dangerous ocean and that long war, but

steamed more than 240,000 miles in all weathers in those perilous years when freedom seemed to hang by a thread.

She had a busy time, rescuing more than 450 torpedoed Merchant Navy men, evacuating troops at Dunkirk, taking part in north African landings and sharing the credit for sinking a U-boat.

When it was all over HMS Wellington was laid up with the hundreds of other warships suddenly surplus to requirements.

Photographs of Pembroke Dock in 1946, where she lay, illustrate wall-to-wall warships, most showing signs of the long years of combat where there was little time for spit and polish.

For some of these ships it would be but a case of waiting for the burners. Some were put into care and maintenance and years of waiting in the reserve fleet, a few would be sold or handed on to Commonwealth or other friendly navies.

Today almost none of these ships survive. Thin skinned and only designed for short and violent lives, within a few years the corrosion would be eating away at the fishplates and wasting the structure.

By a fortuitous chance a different fate awaited Wellington. Plucked out of the fleet in Pembroke Dock, perhaps because she was better built than ships flung together in the years of war, Wellington was bought by the Honourable Company of Master Mariners, one of the newer livery companies of the City of London with no premises of its own.

From every point of view a ship seemed ideal and in 1947 agreement was reached for the HQS Wellington, now flying the Red Ensign, to lie on the Embankment in a procession of elderly ships which included Shackleton's Discovery and older warships used as drill halls.

And in this role she has been very successful, providing a good home to the Hon Company all these years.

The conversion was sympathetically done, the boiler and engine room, with all machinery removed, forming an elegant Court Room for meetings, conferences and dinners.

But there are never any illusions about a ship, which will always require serious money to keep the ravages of time at bay. Wellington sits in fresh water and does not suffer the salt spray that drenched her upperworks for her first dozen years, but she is still a steel ship and as such needs consistent maintenance, without 100 or so matelots to do the dirty work, burnishing her brass and brightwork and holystoning her pitch pine decks.

She is a historic ship, a unique survivor of a different age and of considerable interest for her antiquity alone, but the Hon Company has made something of a treasure house of her in a collection of maritime paintings and artifacts that have been gathered over the years.

There are the silver and porcelain and loving cups of the livery hall, but some of the model ships are truly wonderful and artifacts like the wheel of Joseph Conrad's barque Otago or the bell from the famous Ohio of the Malta convoys are part of our history. An excellent library has been added to over the years and is available for research.

Most people in the maritime industry, if they have passed time in London, have spent some of it aboard Wellington as the ship is a popular venue for shipping-related meetings, conferences and dinners.

She repays a closer inspection for the ambience of her surroundings, the sun on the Thames shining through the portholes, the dark and sinister river flowing past by night across from the bright lights of the south bank.

How long can such a ship be kept going? In 1992 she was given an extensive survey, drydocked, the hull stiffened by doublers where necessary. High specification Jotun paint was applied and the old hull has been regularly surveyed using ultrasonics.

Structurally she is in good shape, but will only remain so as long as money is spent on her upkeep.

It is a constant concern as, unlike a stone building, one cannot turn down the wick on the maintenance of a ship as one never quite catches up what has been lost.

The Hon Company, which ought to understand something about ship maintenance, is determined that unlike many other cash strapped vessels and heritage sites Wellington will not be allowed to reach such a state of disrepair that her survival depends on a huge injection of cash.

'Regular' and 'planned' are the keys to her maintenance programme.

She may not be going anywhere, but Wellington is a working ship, with 16,000 people trooping up and down the brow to the Embankment every year. The International Maritime Pilots' Association has its headquarters aboard, while a whole range of maritime charitable trusts concerned with welfare and education are managed from the ship.

She is a natural focus for the maritime industry of London and doubly valuable because of this useful proximity.

Last year, seeking to preserve the long-term use of the old ship, ownership passed from the Hon Company to the Wellington Trust. The aims of the this charitable trust are threefold:- restoration, maintenance and preservation for the

public benefit of the sloop HQS Wellington , as part of the nation's maritime heritage;- education of the public in the history and traditions of the British Merchant Navy; - supporting national maritime industries and activities.

There will be increased public access. In practice no one with a genuine interest in the ship and the Merchant Navy is ever turned away, and a guided tour of Wellington is something to be sought out.

The ship is 'marketed' very effectively and makes a useful income from corporate events and entertainment, book launches, conferences and the like.

Wellington is a World Ship Trust vessel, which promotes her status as a historic artefact with a special award that is only the sixth ever made great to have, although it comes with no financial aid attached.

The Wellington Trust, for its part, is determined that a proper balance will be struck between revenue earning and the public benefit of greater access for charitable and educational purposes.

But day-to-day maintenance is projected to rise from more than GBP50,000 (US$87,000) last year to well in excess of GBP60,000 from 2009.

Historic ships still have to abide by changing health and safety provisions. The capital costs of a renovation, refurbishment and improvement programme that will ensure the ship's viability for another 30 years has been estimated to cost up to GBP1.3m.

The Hon Company has provided a GBP250,000 grant to the trust, while members and friends have been generous with another GBP130,000 to be used for preservation purposes.

The appeal is now for an endowment fund for future maintenance, restoration and continuing improvement.

Wellington is an important ship, doing an important job for her tenants and for the maritime community in general.

Part of the scenery of London and the Thames, a reminder of a maritime heritage with a continuing role for Britain's maritime future, she deserves our help.

Because she's worth it.

THE ‘CALYPSO’

Remember Jacues Costeua on your TV screens in years gone by.

From The Times December 27, 2005

Family feud leaves Cousteau's ship high and dry, his legacy all at sea

By Adam Sage

A legal dispute is preventing the repairs necessary to make the explorer’s floating world seaworthy

THE vessel made famous by Jacques Cousteau, the late French underwater explorer, has decayed beyond repair during a bitter feud between his widow and son over its ownership, according to officials in the port where she is docked.

They say Cousteau’s beloved vessel, the Calypso, is so decrepit that she would need to be rebuilt before going to sea again.

Authorities in La Rochelle on the French Atlantic coast, where the Calypso has languished since 1998, say that salvage plans have been blocked by the dispute between Cousteau’s second wife, Francine, and his son from his first marriage, Jean-Michel.

Calypso, once known to millions of viewers across the world as a pioneering oceanographic research ship, is rusting and rotting as lawyers argue over her fate.

 “According to experts, she can’t even be repaired. She has to be rebuilt,” said Marc Parnaudeau, the councillor in charge of the case at La Rochelle.

 Neither wife nor son can pursue their plans until the court case is settled.

 The Calypso is a former Royal Navy minesweeper that was bought by the Guinness brewing dynasty after the Second World War in 1950

Guinness leased her to Cousteau for a nominal one franc a year!

 Built in Seattle, she was launched on the 21st March 1942 at the Ballard Marine Railway Yard by Isobel Prentice, the schoolgirl daughter of the shipyards Foreman.

 She was part of the American Lend-Lease scheme.

These little ships were known as British Yard Minesweepers and were identified only by their numbers.

They were crewed by 30 officers and men, 130 were built only six were lost during their war service, all by mine explosion.

Calypso was commissioned as HMS J-026 and in February 1943 she sailed from Seattle bound for Gibraltar via San Francisco and Freetown - a voyage of sixteen thousand miles.

En route she suffered a breakdown and had to put into San Diego for repairs.

Later that year she joined up as a unit o the 153rd Minesweeping Flotilla in the Mediterranean Fleet based at Malta.

She took part in the initial assault convoy to the beaches of Sicily in Operation Husky escorting and supporting the vast allied invasion, sweeping close to the beaches to enable the landing craft to move in.

In 1944 she was renumbered BYMS 2026 and based at Taranto.

She was decommissioned in 1946 and laid up in Malta here she was acquired by Joseph Gasan, a Maltese businessman who used her commercially for a short period as a car ferry, which operated between Malta and Gozo.

In this configuration she was capable of carrying 11 cars and 400 passengers, she was renamed “Calypso G”

Homer's Odyssey tells us that Calypso was a nymph who held Ulysses prisoner of her charms for seven years when he was shipwrecked on the Island of Ogygia, better known today as Gozo.

 The Calypso in norfolk Virginia 1984

 On the 8th January 1996 a barge struck her and punctured her hull the Calypso sank in 5 metres of water in Singapore Harbour.

At the time she was waiting her next expedition although Captain Cousteau was preparing to retire her.

She was salvaged on the 25th January 1996 and then retired to Marseille after 46 years of service with Cousteau.

Her two shaft diesel engines, which gave 1,200 bhp had powered this vessel since 1942 had been replaced in 1986 after forty years in commission.

*******

Falklands’ veteran vessel for sale on internet

  A former Royal Navy support ship that made history in the Falkland Islands conflict has been put up for sale on the Ministry of Defence’s equivalent of eBay.

 The Royal Fleet Auxiliary Sir Percivale was the first British ship to sail into Port Stanley after the Argentine surrender in the 1982 conflict.

It was also last to leave Hong Kong when the colony was handed to China in 1997.

 It has been placed on the website of the MoD’s Disposal Services Agency and is “available for viewing at the Southampton office”.

Sir Percivale appears in an online “warehouse” and includes uniforms, dental supplies, light aircraft and a £150 guardsman’s bearskin, all being sold by the cash-strapped armed forces.

 The 5,674-tonne RFA vessel - officially a Landing Ship Logistic or LSL - has seen service across the world, serving with NATO and UN forces as well as British.

She entered service with the RFA in 1970, and was stationed in the Pacific Ocean for a number of years.

She was designed to support amphibious operations by landing troops, tanks, vehicles and other heavy equipment in port or directly on to a suitable shore.

To achieve this, Sir Percivale has a number of special features, including doors in the bows and stern for rapid loading and unloading, and a shallow draught which enables her to be beached - she is thus part roll-on, roll-off ferry and part landing craft.

Routine work for Sir Percivale and her four sister ships would be freighting Army equipment overseas, normally Germany-bound vehicles through her home base of Marchwood military port and Antwerp.

 But she has also played an important role in the major flashpoints involving British maritime forces in recent years, including the Falklands War. In 1982 Sir Percivale was one of the first ships to sail for the South Atlantic, and was in the forefront of the amphibious assault on San Carlos.

She was also the first ship to enter Stanley harbour after the Argentinian surrender.

Unlike its sister ships Sir Galahad and Sir Tristram, which were hit by Argentine bombs with the loss of 51 lives, Sir Percivale survived unscathed.

 Captain Tony Pitt, its skipper in the Falklands, said: “It is sad these ships have to go. One gets very attached to them, but they all go in the end.”

During the Gulf War the ship was deployed on various duties, remaining in theatre for the duration of the conflict. She has also deployed on a number of occasions to the Adriatic in support of British forces operating in the former Yugoslavia.

In 1997 Sir Percivale was in Hong Kong for the official handover of the colony to China on June 30.

Indeed, when the Royal Yacht and HMS Chatham sailed, Sir Percivale took up station at the rear of the line, and was therefore the last grey ship to leave Hong Kong.

She had been berthed at Stonecutters Island, on the Kowloon side, for almost a month, acting as a logistics base for the last British forces in the territory, accommodating the Royal Navy ceremonial guard, the Royal Marine Band and acting as base for the flight of Sea King helicopters from 846 Naval Air Squadron.

 Her 1997 visit coincided with 15th anniversary of the loss of the RFA Sir Galahad and the bombing of RFA Sir Tristram during the Falklands War.

Both ships had Chinese crewmembers at the time, and at a special ceremony Sir Percivale's commanding officer, Capt P. Roberts - who commanded Sir Galahad when she was attacked - laid a wreath in memory of those who died in the war.

 It survived unscathed, unlike its sister ships Sir Galahad and Sir Tristram, which were hit by Argentine bombs with the loss of 51 lives.

*******

THE LAST SLAVE SHIP

The afternoon death of 'Mary Celestia'

 HERITAGE MATTERS by Dr. Edward Harris MBE

 (From the Bermuda Gazette)

 NEXT year, 2007, is the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the African Slave Trade to the Americas.

In 1807, after a long political battle waged in the Houses of Parliament without the spilling of blood or a real civil war, William Wilberforce and the abolition societies effected the end of slave trade within British dominions through legislation.

 The Battle of Trafalgar two years earlier had unintentionally laid the groundwork for the enforcement of the new law on the ocean seas, since Britannia literally ruled the waves.

The warships of the Royal Navy were employed over the next 70 years in the interdiction of slave ships and the freeing of their pitiful cargoes of human souls with black skins.

 In 1838-1846, some 280 slavers were captured off the west coast of Africa, in the South Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea by Queen Victoria's ships.

That period began four years after slavery – the owning of human slaves – had been outlawed in the British Empire, including Bermuda.

The vessels were engaged in transporting slaves to the United States, Brazil and other non-Empire destinations, the last of which did not outlaw the trade until the 1880s.

 The range of the slavers is indicated in the places of their interception: "Off Lagos", "Off Rio de Janeiro", at "Buraco, Angola", "Off Cuba" and in "The Harbour of Sierra Leone".

 Ships of many nations and types were captured, including schooners, feluccas, barques, brigantines, launches, cutters, a "Polacca brig" and a smack or two.

It seems that anything that could float was pressed into the slave trade.

 It is somewhat heartening to read that a possible relative of some local families, Commander Edward Harris Butterfield, HMS Fantome (16 guns), captured four slavers in 1840 and two in 1841:

The 'Republicano' on April 12,

The 'Claudina' on August 28 "Off the River Congo",

The 'Onze' de Novembro on October 11,

The 'Bellano' on December 18

 The 'Orozimbo' on January 8

And the 'Josephina', with 299 slaves, on May 1, 1841.

 Rather than a war of words and sermons in a parliament, the Americans took to the battlefield over the dissolution of slavery in the civil war of 1860-65, pitching the abolitionists of the northern states against their relatives in the southern.

Standing offshore, away from the immediate heat of battle, Bermuda stood to gain financially from the suffering of those under the gun in the southern Confederate states.

 Soon after hostilities commenced, the northern Union navy began a blockade of the Confederate ports, such as Wilmington, North Carolina.

 Painting of the sinking of the Mary Celestia 

As a new technology was at hand, the reaction to the blockade was to build sleek, steam-driven vessels, with a low profile, to run the gauntlet into the Confederacy from the neutral ports of Nassau, Bahamas and St. George's and Hamilton in these fair isles.

AN interesting indicator of economy boom times at Bermuda is the number of crossings at the Ferry connecting St. George's to Bermuda itself.

Before the war, annual carriage crossings averaged some 250; at its height, these apparently rose to more than 4,000, carrying traders, ships' captains and officials to Hamilton and St. George's.

During one of these trips, people connected with the doomed Mary Celestia would have made their way to the capital at Hamilton to embark for the Carolinas on September 6, 1864.

 The pilot, John Virgin, of the family still residing there, would have made his way eastward from the upper parish of Sandys to take the blockade-runner to sea.

 According to Bermuda Maritime Museum researcher Dr. Bill Cooke, the Mary Celestia was launched at Liverpool in February 1864 and arrived at Bermuda in May.

The vessel made at least five round trips to the Confederacy, but in the subterfuge of the day, she was always cleared for a trip to Nassau.

This was the case on the fateful date the ship left Hamilton under Pilot Virgin and proceeded to The Narrows and the open sea.

For some reason, she skirted the south shore and then turned landwards at Gibbs Hill Lighthouse, presumably to let Virgin off nearer to home than the usual debarkation point for pilots at St. George's.

ACCORDING to Dr. Cooke, The Royal Gazette reported the loss of "that beautiful steamer Mary Celestia so long and favourably known as one of the swiftest and most fortunate of her class".

 Dr. Cooke goes on to state that off the Lighthouse, the First Officer, Mr. Stuart warned Mr. Virgin about some breakers ahead, only to be told: "I know every rock about here as well as I know my own house."

 Ten minutes later, the Mary Celestia was on the bottom, perhaps on a rock Mr. Virgin knew too well; history does not record the later state of his house.

The reason for this untoward wrecking has never been ascertained, as it took in the late afternoon in the best of sea conditions.

 The Mary Celestia lies in about 60 feet of water and is one of the most visited underwater museum sites in Bermuda.

Unfortunately, it has been subjected to salvage and looting, the most recent taking place after Hurricane Fabian, when more of the ship was exposed.

 Under the director of Professor Gordon Watts, Jr., of East Carolina University, the shipwreck was archaeologically investigated by the Bermuda Maritime Museum in the early 1980s. Its two paddlewheels were still extant and a part of the bow was above the surface of the sand.

 THE mid-ship section containing the engine room is apparent to all and the piston rods and crankshaft to the paddle wheels are brightly covered with coral and other sea life.

The fish would have enjoyed the 125 boxes of bacon on board, but it is unlikely that anything else in the 534 containers of other merchandise would have been of interest.

 To its credit, the Government has now appointed a Custodian of Wrecks, so hopefully more attention will be paid to the preservation to this outstanding relic of an important period in Bermuda's history and that of enslaved Africans in the USA.

* * *

Dr. Edward Harris, MBE, JP, FSA, Bermudian, is the Executive Director of the Bermuda Maritime Museum. The views expressed here are his opinion and not necessarily those of the trustees or staff of the Museum.

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