Navy is now down to five ships.

[John Arton]

There was a program on BBC 2 last night, first of three, on our new aircraft carrier, very ińteresting. Showed the training undertaken even before they actually got on board. They had a flooding alert when a cooling pipe burst and water was showering down over the electrical power plant which has the same amount of electrical capacity as that a town the size of Aberdeen.
There were comparison made with the USA carriers on crew sizes, there are only 750 crew on board the Queen Elizabeth carrier as opposed to a couple of thousand on the U.S carriers, that figure does not include flight crews. Admittedly our carrier. Is designed to have 45? Planes on board as opposed to over 100? On the U.S. carriers. The first program ended with the vessel leaving the yard to start sea trials, which will be shown next week.
Most important stores item on board?
Toilet paper!!!
Rgds
J.A.

[j.sabourn]

John when I proof read a partial book by W. McCoughlin in the 50s when I was only 17, think the book turned out to be called The Deep South. Was about the whale factory ships the Harvester and Venturer. If I remememner even then there were upwards of a 1000 on went with them down to South Georgia. W. McCloughlin had been the working mate on the Harvester if not both of them at various times. Although it sounds a lot of men, but these ships worked round the clock, butchers and flensers and wouldn’t be surprised candle stickmakers in the tens of dozens. Today merchant ships call in technicians as required. Naval ships carry all their own technicians , I used to wonder how the crews were so big, but there is good reason for it. I was always told there was a back up man for everyone on board, but think now it goes further than that. Cheers JWS.

[Keith Tindell]

I remember BA training on HMS Bulwark in Portsmouth in the late 70s, we would do exercises 3 times per week, and smoke log different pats of the ship, it was so easy to get completely lost, and she was only a tiddler compared to the queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier. i would hate to have to deal with a large fire on there. It is proving to be a very interesting program, kt

[robpage]

Somebody within Union Castle had a brainstorm in about 1971 and sent a few of us across to the old HMS Phoenix for fire brigade training with the Royal Navy they had an entirely different approach to what Hampshire fire brigade had at Warsash to the point of view where I think for the average Merchant Navy firefighter it could have been dangerous there seems to be a different attitude of what took a priority in your list of things to save man or ship

[Bill Cameron]

Somebody within Union Castle had a brainstorm in about 1971 and sent a few of us across to the old HMS Phoenix for fire brigade training with the Royal Navy they had an entirely different approach to what Hampshire fire brigade had at Warsash to the point of view where I think for the average Merchant Navy firefighter it could have been dangerous there seems to be a different attitude of what took a priority in your list of things to save man or ship

I did my fire training at HMS Cochrane at Rosyth as a naval reservist, must admit it was very intense, and a wee bit scary the first time, but I thought it was very effective.

[Ivan Cloherty]

There was a program on BBC 2 last night, first of three, on our new aircraft carrier, very ińteresting. Showed the training undertaken even before they actually got on board. They had a flooding alert when a cooling pipe burst and water was showering down over the electrical power plant which has the same amount of electrical capacity as that a town the size of Aberdeen.
J.A.

An interesting programme, which in some instances probably gave too much vulnerability away, although any future opposition may already be aware of these factors. The flooding in the engineroom was from a leaking pipe situated behind deckhead lagging and had been accumulating for some days until the weight of it made the lagging collapse, why had no one spotted this; had this happened at sea and the water was spraying from p-s-p-etc when the vessel rolled then the PVC covers thrown over the electrical components may well have proved useless, worked this time as the water was dropping vertically as the vessel lay dormant alongside a quay: hope they've sorted their leak detection system out

A quarter of the crew had never been to sea before including many 17/18 year olds and the Captain was asked about their safety and said words he may come to regret and have no say over when he said 'I would never put my young crew members in a situation that put them in danger, as I have a 17 year old son and would not put him in danger' Perhaps good PR for recruitment, you're in danger as soon as you step off that gangway be it RN or MN

I shall be watching again next week along with many Soviet agents/Russian Embassy as well no doubt! Whoops! Forgot to mention the Chinese, who held an exercise last week in the South China Sea, comprising 48 Naval vessels (warships and submarines) 76 fighter aircraft and over 10,000 personnel), sleep easy!

[Hugh]

I remember BA training on HMS Bulwark in Portsmouth in the late 70s, we would do exercises 3 times per week, and smoke log different pats of the ship, it was so easy to get completely lost, and she was only a tiddler compared to the queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier. i would hate to have to deal with a large fire on there. It is proving to be a very interesting program, kt

I did my firefighting training at HMS PHOENIX - pretty realistic and scary. Every ship in the RN will do a firefighting exercise daily no matter what and that includes shore bases. It was always drummed into us that we couldn't call the fire brigade when we were at sea.
Regards
Hugh

[vic mcclymont]

196 # In a sense the Captain is correct, persons under the age of 18 in the UK cannot be sent to the frontline, in any of our services.
Vic

[Ivan Cloherty]

196 # In a sense the Captain is correct, persons under the age of 18 in the UK cannot be sent to the frontline, in any of our services.
Vic

Vic you don't have to on the front line to be in danger on a ship, as the C/E said the Engineroom with its 11,000 voltage system (yup that's correct 11K) was a very dangerous place to be when water is introduced, hence my remarks about danger when you step off the gangway, and think of the MN ships of old with all the forest of derricks and wires everywhere, danger is just not from conflict.

[robpage]

The first time I saw an 11kv engine room was on looking around 82 tanker import which was built I think in 1943 it made out of 440 volt 60 cycle stuff look quite tame . I have work the 11kv ashore and it is not a voltage to play with a good friend of mine who worked on electricity boards ended up having to remove an electrician from a tiled floor with a paint scraper because of an 11kv accident