JS Your #93
Well,you know me by now,John,when I'm bored (and not aboard) I like nothing better,apart from a bottle of ice cold Stella,to pick up on a ship mentioned in a post-and yours,like many of the stalwarts on here are always interesting old(ish) vessels,- and trace it's history.
So here goes.
m.v.WARKWORTH (ON 186927),completed 5/1962 by Bartram & Sons,Sunderland for Watergate Steam Shipping Co Ltd,Newcastle. Cargo ship,9,721 grt,diesel engine,13k.
Subsequent History
1970 SALAMAT-Greek
1974 PHILIPPA-Greek
1974 SKYMNOS-Cyprus,then Greek.
FATE
With the outbreak of hostilities between Iran and Iraq in Sept.1980,the Greek m.v.SKYMNOS was one of the more than 90 + vessels trapped in Shatt al Arab ports and adjacent Iraqi waterways.
She lay at the Iraqi port of Fao(Al Faw) where she had arrived on 19/9/80,just before hostilities began in earnest,and having been anchored off the pilot station awaiting a berth since 2nd August.It was during a subsequent Iranian attack on the port of Fao on 9th January a few months later that she was so severely damaged to be declared a War Constructive Total Loss.She was abandoned,caught fire,broke her moorings and drifted into the Shatt al Arab where she remained for the rest of that war.