Visiting The SS Great Britain
Before kick-off I also had time to visit the SS Great Britain.
The attached museum is pretty good too. It took me about ninety minutes to tour both. I was also surprised to see a lady in a wheelchair on the ship with an assistance dog. So the disabled access must be pretty easy as well.
I would recommend if you’re going to the football at Ashton Gate, that if you get into Bristol before about 11:00, as I did, you have time for lunch, a walk and a visit to the Great Britain. From there it’s a fairly simple twenty minutes or so walk to the ground.
Bring Back the Corvette
When I was watching the MS Deutschland depart yesterday, a Belgian ship the Godetia, was alongside the quay. Wikipedia says this about the history of the ship.
The Godetia is the successor of the HMS Godetia (K226), a British Flower class corvette which was manned by Belgian sailors during Second World War.
So what was a Flower class Corvette? There is a long wikipedia article here.
They were built as simple ships, originally to escort coastal convoys. But as the war progressed, and things got worse in the North Atlantic, these simple ships were used to protect convoys from U-Boats. I know a bit about this, as my next door neighbour in Felixstowe had served on corvettes during the Second World War. He could have written this.
Service on Flowers in the North Atlantic was typically cold, wet, monotonous and uncomfortable. Every dip of the fo’c’sle into an oncoming wave was followed by a cascade of water into the well deck amidships. Men at action stations were drenched with spray and water entered living spaces through hatches opened to access ammunition magazines. Interior decks were constantly wet and condensation dripped from the overheads.[9] The head (or sanitary toilet) was drained by a straight pipe to the ocean; and a reverse flow of the icy North Atlantic would cleanse the backside of those using it during rough weather. By 1941, corvettes carried twice as many crewmen as anticipated in the original design. Men slept on lockers or tabletops or in any dark place that offered a little warmth. The warships were nicknamed “the pekingese of the ocean”. They had a reputation of having poor sea-handling characteristics, most often rolling in heavy seas, with complete 80-degree rolls (40 degrees each side of the normal upright position) being fairly common; it was said they “would roll on wet grass”.[10] Many crewmen suffered severe motion sickness for a few weeks until they acclimatised to shipboard life.[9] It should be noted however, the general design of the Flowers was extremely seaworthy (just poor sea-handling characteristics), as no Allied sailor was ever lost overboard from a Flower during World War II, outside of enemy action.
So why should we bring them back?
Our armed forces are strapped for cash, just as those of virtually every other nation is.
We also are suffering from multiple threats like piracy around the coast of Africa and South-East Asia and probably other places soon, as the world economy gets worse. There are also fishery protection and humaritarian needs, where large ships are a massive overkill.
These uses will probably not meet anybody more heavily armed than with an RPG or a heavy machine gun.
So would a modern design built on a steel hull in larger numbers, be the ideal ship for these types of actions? Some years ago, there was a proposal for an Osprey class frigate, which would have been based on the profile of a cross-channel ferry. But the civil servants, who dispense what the Navy gets, decided in their wisdom that the sleek aluminium hulled ones were so much better. I always remember talking to an officer on a Sealink ferry, who had gone to the Falklands War. He said that the seas were so bad, that the ferries had to slow down to allow the sleek naval ships to keep up.
Interestingly, the Americans have come up with the concept of a Littoral combat ship.
I suspect that there is a sensible design in there, which would probably be something like this.
- Steel hull and superstructure
- Small crew, but the ability to cater for quite a few more.
- Ability to carry a modular mission payload. Just like Thunderbird 2!
- Ability to land and refuel a helicopter and/or perhaps a drone.
- Diesel engine powered
- Moderate range and enough speed to get out of the way of pirates with RPGs in rubber boats
- Good commuication and other systems, so that groups from different navies could work together in serious situations.
I also feel that if the modules could be similar in size to standard shipping containers, then when there is a humanitarian emergency in a place that is difficult to get to, then they can be used to bring in supplies and equipment. All this would need would be for the ships to have similar module loading.
Perhaps what is needed is something with the seaworthiness of a lifeboat, the strength of the average ferry and the adaptability of a Lockheed Hercules!
Auf Weidersehen, Deutschland!
I couldn’t resist going to Docklands to see the departure of the MS Deutschland.
It was a tight squeeze to get out.
I think we’re going to see more ships like the MS Deutschland entering the docks at Canary Wharf and berthing on the South Quay. I suspect that a lot of people are wishing that the lock connecting the West India Docks to the River Thames was built a bit larger by the Victorians. This was published by Motor Boats Monthly.
The manoeuvre took just under three hours, and a huge amount of skill to complete. The ship itself is 175.3m long with a 23m beam, and the lock is just over this at 178m long and 24.4m wide.
So it was a very tight squeeze. Note that the largest ship of the nineteenth century was the SS Great Eastern, which wouldn’t have fitted into the lock to get in and out of the docks.
Germans Book Their Place For The Olympics
I know there is a bit of a stereotype about Germans getting up early to put their towels on loungers.
But then they go and bring their cruise ship, the MS Deutschland, into London Docklands, a whole year ahead of the Olympics.
It did suffer the indignity of having to come in backwards. So is this an omen, that the Germans are going to do well in the rowing?
Th SS Robin Opposite the ExCel
The SS Robin is the last steam coaster left and now after a certain amount of rebuilding it is sitting on a barge in the Royal Victoria Dock behind the ExCel Exhibition Centre.
If you want to go and see it take the DLR to Custom House and walk down to the dock.
Do The Northern Irish Have a Morbid Sense of Pride?
Apparently there’s a joke in Belfast about the Titantic, which says that “She was alright, when she left here!”
I don’t think that if she’d been built on the Tyne or the Wear, they’d be celebrating the 100th anniversary of her launch, as they are in Belfast.
Titantic was one of three Olympic Class Ocean liners and only Olympic saw service of more than a few years. So they weren’t favoured with the best of luck. Although, Olympic, which served as a troopship in the First World War, was nicknamed Old Reliable.
The Disappointing SS Great Britain
I found Brunel’s SS Great Britain very disappointing.
SS Great Britain
This is the best view you can get of the ship without paying £12.90 a person. That is just too much! Compare with how the Belfast or the Cutty Sark are displayed in London, where you can get a good view of the outside for nothing.
When you only have a couple of hours to visit an attraction, there needs to be some way to get a flavour.
The cafe was a bit of a disappointment too, as nothing was marked gluten free and it took a great deal of time to find out what was OK for me. In the end I had some very nice soup, but I still paid for the bread I didn’t need. Not that I worried about that, as the food was more important, but it would make it difficult for a family of coeliacs.
Lost Without a Clock
For the last forty years I’ve had a brass-bezelled ship’s clock in the kitchen. Tooday, it’s not there as I’ve packed it!
The clock was bought in Liverpool and was rumoured to have come of the Great Eastern.
I doubt it, but I’m lost!
The Last of the Hunters
In the 1960s, there was a series of adverts for fish, which used the slogan, “Fish! The only food you go out and hunt!”
On the South Quay in Great Yarmouth today, was the Lydia Eva, the last of the steam drifters, that used to dominate herring fishing in the North Sea.
She is now a museum and uniquely a ship that contains a museum, that actually works and goes to sea!
The Anonymous Widower 