SHIPBUILDING IN GREAT BRITAIN AND THE US.
One may assume that men first built boats for the simplest of economic reasons; they wanted to fish or get about the rivers and their native coasts with ease.
The derivation of the word SHIP, like the beginning of the object it names, is lost in time. An oared vessel cannot be called a ship, only a sailed or mechanically driven vessel can be truly called a ship. Probably, the evolution of the boat into the ship was more romantically inspired for curiosity, an appetite for adventure, and a desire to trade or to fight if need be, were obvious motives behind operations overseas.
The early British peoples were given some sharp object lessons in the meaning of sea power by the Angles, the Jutes, the Romans, the Vikings and latterly the Normans. The Phoenicians gave the Cornish folk a peaceable demonstration of the possibilities of sea-borne commerce, but it is one of those oddities of history that the people of the British Isles were late developers in this business of seafaring.
There was trading in a small way between the South of England and Northern Europe and between Eastern Scotland and the Low Countries, but British shipping began to matter only when England was more or less unified under the later Plantagenets.
It started to be the formidable thing it is under Elizabeth-I, and her galaxy of Admirals. The history books claim that Alfred-the-Great was the true founder of the Royal Navy. He did indeed form a successful fleet of longships and galleys, with crews properly trained.
William the Conqueror encouraged the Cinque Ports to keep and furnish ships for national service, and Richard the Lionheart sailed for the Holy Wars with a fleet of 100 ships and 50 galleys. King John was so well satisfied with his country’s naval dominance that he claimed for England the sovereignty of the seas and required all foreigners to strike to the English flag.
(Hence the striking or dipping of ensigns by ships that pass)
But English prominence in shipping dates from the first Elizabeth, the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the exploratory voyages of Drake and others in that galaxy of Admirals. Their ships were primitive; their men were either thugs of the highest order moved to adventure by the hope of plunder, or mere innocents, but let us not deny them their haloes of romance.
They established the naval and shipping supremacy of these islands; something that was to last for 300 years. It was entirely in the South of England that the British seafaring tradition was nurtured.
The great sailors of the period were men of Devon, Dorset, Hampshire, Kent and Essex. Their ships were built on the Southern estuaries, and Royal Dockyards or relics of Royal Dockyards - remain there to this day to remind us of the fact. The materials were grown in English forests or smelted in the English woodlands, but it is on record that James IV of Scotland built at Newhaven (near Edinburgh) a ship named the “ Great Michael”. The largest of her time, she swallowed up the timber from every wood in Fife, except Falkland Wood, and timber from Norway besides.
Scottish history records her as “ane verie monstrous great schip” but she seems to have been more a pretentious symbol of power than a manageable and useful vessel.
MEN OF WAR
It is possible that the seafaring adventures of the Elizabethan era promoted an interest in shipbuilding in other parts of the island, but the important thing is that the ships of those days were primarily men of war, and it remained that way for 200 years. Trade has already followed the flag but the first essential was, obviously, to fight to get your flag where you wanted to trade. The East India Company springs to mind as a concern which developed ships and trade to a remarkable degree, but they too carried guns to enforce any arguments.
Not until after the Napoleonic wars did the Royal and Merchant Navies begin to develop such and establish their clearly different functions, yet, to this day, the importance of the interdependence as between our naval and our trading needs cannot possibly be over emphasised.
The Mercantile Marine of yesterday is the Merchant Navy and Fishing Fleet of today, and, in the unhappy event of war, is immediately part of our defence system. If one may return to the East Indiamen.
They were the first “ liners “ and, in a sense, big firms such as the P. & O. still wear the august mantle of “ John Company “ which opened up British trade and Empire in the East. East India Company ships were “first raters “ in the Navy of their day. One can almost trace a direct link between them and the armed merchant cruisers of the 1914-18 and 1939-45 wars.
But who began the movement which shifted British shipbuilding from South to North? Before Trafalgar a little ship, driven by steam, had sailed a Scottish loch, and an improved version had towed barges on the Forth and Clyde Canal. Then, in 1812, came the rather eccentric Henry Bell and his steamboat COMET, carrying passengers between Glasgow and Greenock.
Bell was a builder but he kept an hotel on the Firth of Clyde when he ordered the hull of the COMET. William Symington had produced a practical steamboat as early as 1788, but the directors of the Forth and Clyde Canal would have none of her. They feared that the wash from the paddles might break down the canal banks! Henry Fulton had built and demonstrated a steamboat in the United States, but as soon as Bell had demonstrated the commercial possibilities, and Watt had hastened the coming of the Industrial Revolution, shipbuilding became a job for engineers and engineering names like Napier and Robertson and Cook began to find their place in the annals of the Clyde.
As long ago as 1787, John Wilkinson, a Shropshire iron-founder who used barges to transport his products to the Bristol Channel, quarrelled with the barge builders about delivery dates, and determined to teach them a lesson, built himself an iron barge. The “Trial” of 1787, launched at Willey Wharf, was the forefather of all iron and steel ships. Wilkinson had an interest in an ironworks and foundry at Backbarrow, Lancashire, within 20 miles of where the shipyard and engineering works of the Vickers Group now stand at Barrow-in-Furness.
He experimented with his models of his iron barge at Lindale, about 25 miles inland from Barrow, and an obelisk, built and planted by Wilkinson himself, stands as his memorial in the village. He is buried in an iron coffin in Lindale Churchyard.
PADDY WHEELS
Paddle wheels as a means of propulsion were also known in the 18th Century, and an inventive French nobleman, the Marquis de Joffroy demonstrated them successfully on the River Saone in 1783. He used a steam engine to drive the wheels, but no one regarded either his paddle steamer or Wilkinson’s iron barge with any seriousness. Yet steamboats were being built by the dozen towards the end of the 18th Century and an American, John Fitch turned his attention to the screw propeller as a means of propulsion.
The Chinese are believed to have used such a device, propelled by hand, many centuries ago but Fitch had no success as he strove to master the difficulties of gearing, shafting, and watertight glands.
In despair he took his own life.
Robert Fulton had a steamboat on the Hudson River in 1807, though he had previously been busy trying to sell an invention for a submarine.
Ultimately he enjoyed a monopoly for shipping on the Hudson River, but it was Bell who showed that there really were commercial possibilities in steamships even though Clyde sailors dubbed them “stink pots”. The Clyde engineering firms branched out as shipbuilders, profiting from the Industrial Revolution and the proximity of Lanarkshire coal and iron, but the move to the North was slow. At various small ports around the country there had been yards that could build wooden ships but as iron and then steel were proved for hulls, wooden ships went out of business.
Even the famous Tea Clippers, the “swan song” of sail, were a compromise so far as British builders were concerned. They had iron frames and wooden hulls against the “Yankee Clippers” hulls of home-grown softwoods. But the ships built for the Australian wool trade had iron hulls for their cargo was bulky and required big holds. These ships of the 1850s were as fine a sailing vessel as had ever been designed and American and British yards were often competing. Shipbuilding gradually departed from the Thames, where the last great essay was probably Brunel’s giant GREAT EASTERN.
Shipbuilding gradually deserted the smaller coastal yards and by the late 19th Century was firmly established in centres which gave navigable water, coal, iron and steel. Thus do we find only the Dockyards at Chatham, Portsmouth and Devonport and the shipyards of Southampton (Thornycroft) and Cowes (J. Samuel White) now on the South Coast.
They tend to specialise, and for all practical purposes Britain’s real shipbuilding and engineering strength is in that part of the country between the Mersey and the Clyde; the Humber and the Forth.
Even at that there have been changes. The depression years of the 1920s were in contrast with the boom years of the 1890s and the early 1900’s. Shipyards went out of business; shipbuilding concerns went into liquidation. The ranks were thinned until now there were 10 districts and 27 firms, which were considered important enough for “cover” by the Geddes Inquiry of 1966. One of those firms - the Blyth Dry Docks and Shipbuilding Company Limited - later closed and there were amalgamations on the Clyde and Tyne. The Burntisland shipyard went into voluntary liquidation in 1969.
BUILDING A SHIP
Any ship is what it is, in size or shape, precisely because it has been so designed by its builders to discharge a given function. In war there can be some sort of mass production, instanced by the “Liberty” ships and other designs turned out in considerable numbers for the Allied fleets between 1941 and 1945. In peace time ships are “built to order”. The prospective owner states his broad requirements and possibly, through his own naval architect’s department, gives more detail.
There may be competitive tender, but a wealth of negotiation, discussion and detail planning goes before any keel is laid. Hull forms are tested in experimental tanks to prove ideas about performances at sea. Models are tested so that the best form of hull may be produced. Shipbuilding is no longer a matter of “having an eye for a nice curve”. It is a science. The greatest possible speed for any given power interests the owner, the designer, the builder, and the engineer. The hull shape above water is of less importance than the shape below the water line.
Above water, shape is governed largely by a ship’s particular needs, though great attention is paid to appearance, chiefly in passenger vessels. Nevertheless there is a tendency to discard appearances in favour of purely functional design. Modern cargo vessels prove this trend.
Once a ship’s “lines” are approved, building can begin. Every modern shipyard had its launchways, built on the foreshore and served by adequate cranage. Each shipbuilding berth has been strengthened so as to take the weight of a completed hull.
Keel blocks are laid with their tops in a straight line and at a slope, which experience and calculation have previously decided to be the exact amount for an easy and successful launching. In some yards, generally overseas, the berths are under cover; in others there are no berths as such and the ships are built on their keel blocks in a mammoth dry dock.
Japanese shipbuilders use this system.
The curve of the ship’s hull, the sections, water lines and buttock lines are now enlarged from the lines plan to full size in the Mould Loft, a large building placed conveniently near and with an open floor which is, in effect, a giant blackboard.
The lines drawn on this floor are “faired” - all the irregularities are smoothed out - and they are then transferred by accurate measurement to the “scrieve board”, an expanse of floor on which sections of the hull are drawn and then marked permanently.
Then comes the task of transferring the curves of the ship’s frames from the scrieve board to the “bending slabs”. This is done with a “set iron”, a length of soft iron, which can be used many times and which can be expertly bent and re-bent as the curves alter with the shape of the hull. These “set irons”, fixed in bending slabs and pinned down, enable the frames to be accurately made and shaped.
A ship’s hull is actually a girder of complex form designed to withstand the many stresses to which it will be subjected at sea. It is a shell of steel plates on a complicated steel skeleton. The man part of that skeleton are the keelson or centre girder, the ship’s “backbone” the frames or “ribs”; the double bottom, the bulkheads or vertical divisions; the beams which connect the heads of the frames and support the decks, and the stringers or longitudinal girders. Each frame, for instance, extends from the double bottom to the topmost full-length deck and each has to be accurately shaped. Former practice was to trim, punch and drill the plates, which formed the “skin” or hull and then rivet them to the frames and to each other.
Now very little riveting is done but ships are built in sections and under cover, welding being extensively employed. The sections are transported to the building berth and there built up into the hull. The hiss of the welding torch has replaced the rattle of the riveting hammer.
The demands for ships in the 1939-45 war improved the techniques of welding and now it saves steel, cuts cost, makes a joint that is automatically watertight, and leaves rivets for only a few places in the hull.
ACTIVITY PATTERN
A big ship grows in a mass of staging so that men can work on her. Modern planning permits her machinery to be installed as she is on the launchways and in the Drawing Offices, Pattern Shop, Foundries, Forge, Boiler shop, Pipe Shop, Sheet Metal Shop, Machine Shops and Erecting Shops of the Engineering works, there has been as much activity, as in the shipyard as patterns are made and parts cast, and the whole, machined, and built up into turbines or diesel engines; miles of pipe and miles of ventilation trunking. Similarly the shipyard carpenters are making the various items of fittings and furniture.
All manner of machinery and equipment goes into a modern ship. The activity inevitably involves firms and factories throughout the country. Come launching day and the great weight of the hull is transferred from keel blocks and timber shoring to the wooden “cradles”. The final result is that the ship is resting on these “cradles” and the sliding ways, and is only prevented from moving along the greased ways by mechanical triggers, to be released electronically at the moment of launching. A ship launch is always a picturesque and impressive occasion.
A great crowd gathers on each side of the hull. On a platform gay with bunting the guests gather round the pedestal or table on which stands the bottle of wine with which the new ship will be named. This wine is a symbol of the blood sacrifice that marked a launching in pagan days. The bottle is held in a stand and is connected to the ship’s hull by rods.
The moment of launching is governed by the tide. If it is only a few inches too high the stern, when water-borne, would press upwards while the rest of the hull was on the launchway, perhaps resulting in permanent hull distortion. If the tide is too low then the stern might well tend to droop before it’s supported by water - a distortion called “hogging” where as upward pressure from the stern is “sagging”.
A hull must enter the water exactly when the two opposite tendencies are balanced. That moment comes; a signal is given to the platform party; the chairman of the building company asks the principal guest to “name and launch this ship”. The christening ceremony is time honoured “I name this ship. ”Sinkfaster”; May God Bless her and all who sail in her”. A lever is pulled the bottle of wine crashes against the ship’s bow and the triggers holding the hull are released. Slowly the ship’s hull begins to move; then faster finally entering the water with a great wave piling up at the stern and clouds of dust around the bows as the drag chains rumbled into action to prevent the new ship running away.
Ships have been launched over a distance by remote control, notably the Orient liner Orion that was launched at Barrow when HRH the Duke of Gloucester pressed a button in Brisbane, Australia, in December 1934. Launching is followed by fitting out, but it is not now impossible to launch a ship complete and ready for sea. By tradition a ship completes at a wharf away from the launchways where all her gear and equipment can be installed and tested before she sails for acceptance trials. Naturally the owner insists upon performance, design and equipment up to the contract standard before he takes over his new ship.
Speed trials are run over a measured mile with the ship’s hull having been cleaned in dry dock and busy men in the boiler and engine rooms. Now a new feature is creeping into ship design. In the future a ship’s engineer may no longer be king in his own domain, deep down in the engine room. He will be able to control all from one central panel, possibly located on the ship’s bridge. Another tradition is dying.
THE BARROW-IN-FURNESS WORKS
The shipyard at Barrow-in-Furness was established in 1878 by a local company, the Barrow Shipbuilding Company. It was an idea of the late Sir James Ramsden, first Mayor of Barrow and Secretary and General Manager of the Furness Railway, which really founded the fortunes of Barrow-in-Furness. The yard was laid out on the Eastern shore of Walney Channel but on the Western Shore of Barrow Island. The Barrow Channel, on the Eastern Shore of Barrow Island, was turned into a docks system by the railway company, and between the docks and the channel separating Walney Island from Barrow Island, engineering shops were built. Fitting out wharfs was constructed at Buccleuch and Devonshire Docks. The Barrow Shipbuilding Company became linked with Nordenfelt Gun and ammunition interests in 1886 and became the Naval Construction and Armament Company in 1887.
Vickers Sons and Company had associated themselves with the Maxim Gun Company at about the same period, and as Vickers had always aimed at being able to build, equip and Arm the largest battleships of the day. It was no surprise that, in 1897 the Vickers - Maxim combine should purchase the Naval Construction and Armament Company. The process is still referred to as “ The Great Amalgamation “. It produced Vickers Sons and Maxim Ltd. In 1911 the Sons and Maxim were dropped from the title and Vickers became simply Vickers Ltd. In 1927 a process of rationalisation and the state of the industry produced another amalgamation, that of Vickers and the Tyneside and Manchester shipbuilding and engineering concern of Sir W.G. Armstrong Whitworth and Co. Ltd. This merged the Vickers’ works at Barrow, Sheffield, Erith and Dartford and the Elswick and Openshaw Works and High Walker shipyard of Armstrong Whitworth. The new Parent company was Vickers - Armstrongs Ltd., later given two main divisions, Vickers Armstrongs (Shipbuilders) Ltd., and Vickers - Armstrongs (Engineers) Ltd. At about the same time Vickers disposed of their interests in Wolseley, the car manufacturers; Metropolitan Vickers Ltd. and William Beardmore & Co. Ltd. James Booth and Co. Ltd. also went, along with Duralumin and other aluminium alloys. The policy of contraction caused some alarm at the time, but the final step in the 1927-29 reorganisation was the creation of English Steel Corporation, lost to Vickers with steel nationalisation. In the middle 1960s came the creation of Groups within Vickers, and Barrow Shipbuilding and Engineering Works are now owned, operated by Vickers Shipbuilding Group following a lengthy spell during which the Engineering Works were owned by Vickers Engineering Group. Only the Cement Machinery Division operates within the Barrow Engineering Works as a unit of Vickers Engineering Group. Vickers Shipbuilding Group is one of five Groups within Vickers Shipbuilding, Engineering, Printing Machinery, Medical and Office Equipment. As an establishment the Barrow unit can still build and equip a merchant ship or warship ready for sea. All its shipbuilding berths have been reconstructed and the yard has already built Europe’s first 100,000 tons deadweight oil tanker. The berths range in size from 1,000 feet to 400 feet and include one 810 feet by 100 feet.
The facilities allow of two nuclear powered submarines being built side by side, or of Numbers 2 and 3 berths being used as one for the construction of very large tankers. Annual capacity 80,000 tons.
Liners up to 45,000 tons gross and tankers of up to 160,000 tons deadweight can be built but it is now company policy to concentrate on sophisticated ships so as to fully utilise the design and manufacturing skills built up with the nuclear submarine program. Ship design and other consistency services have been developed and one of the latest ventures is an Oceanics Department operating its own two-man submarine - Vickers-Pisces and its own research ship, Vickers Venturer.
An assembly shop allows for construction of hull sections under cover and final erection on the slipway. Quality and project controls have been developed as means of further efficiency and production. Modern welding techniques are extensively used and the yard is currently the “lead yard” for the British nuclear submarine program. It has, in fact, built more than 300 submarines for the Royal Navy, including the first to enter service. All future nuclear powered submarines for the Royal Navy will be built at Barrow. The engineering works, which adjoins the Shipyard, have benefited from a diversification policy begun many years ago. They now manufacture marine engines, boilers, diesel engines for marine and railway purposes, gears, cement machinery, large pumps, armaments and a variety of general engineering products.
So far as fitting out berths are concerned; there is a specialist department for submarines and two or four major berths. Two are served by cranes of 150 tons and 250 tons capacity. Among ships built at the yard are the Orient liner Oriana; the P. & O. liners Chusan and Himalaya; the 100,000 tons tanker British Admiral; the nuclear submarine Dreadnought; the Polaris submarines Resolution and Repulse; and, during the 1939-45 war. The aircraft carriers Illustrious and Indomitable; the cruiser Spartan and countless famous submarines. The cruiser Ajax of River Plate fame was built at Barrow in 1936 and the liner Jervis Bay, sunk in action against a German raider, was built in the 1920s.
The SHEFIELD , once again the ‘ first of class’ was built at Barrow, and was sunk in the Falkland War. Now, after the end of the ‘Cold’ war, Barrow once again shows the world its expertise by building the TRIDENT Class submarine, in the new hall built to accommodate four of these huge vessels, and then wheel them out, as they are finished, and put them on a ship lift, which then lowers them into the water. Vessels of many sizes can also be lifted out of the water by this method, and then transferred into the hall, where work required can be carried out under cover, and then move them back the same way. The replacement for the aircraft carrier, the helicopter carrier is also under construction, again another tradition goes.
BARROW BUILT
This history is dedicated to employees past and present whose skills and efforts have given pride to the phrase “Barrow built” and made the name Vickers known and respected throughout the world. Vickers and Barrow are names synonymous with the development of the submarine. Three hundred and twenty submarines covering virtually every class have been built for the Royal Navy and foreign Navies. Although the Holland’s were the first submarines for the Royal Navy, the first Barrow built submarine was the Nordenfelt built in 1886 on the instructions of Thorsten Nordenfelt, a Swedish industrialist and arms dealer.
Nordenfelt 1886
This steam-driven boat was 100 feet long and displaced 160 tons. She was an improved version of an earlier submarine built in Stockholm in 1882 and based on the Resurgam, a submarine designed and developed by an Englishman, The Rev. William Garret of Liverpool.
In 1887, another Nordenfelt was built at Barrow. This vessel was 125 feet long, displaced 230 tons, had a hull form more like that of a conventional ship, and achieved a speed of 14 knots.
The Nordenfelts were not particularly successful. When operating near the surface they were fast and manageable, but when completely submerged they lacked longitudinal stability. The first was sold to Turkey but never entered service; the second sank on her delivery trip to Russia. However, when the advent of nuclear power put steam propulsion back into submarines, Vickers could surely reflect; “So, what’s new?” We did it in 1886’.
Up to 1900, the British Admiralty had stolidly refused to have anything to do with submarines, considering them to have a defensive role only, for the weaker maritime nations, and to be a “damned un-English weapon”. But the fact that the French were rapidly building up a submarine fleet undoubtedly helped persuade them to “test the value of the submarine boat as a weapon in the hands of our enemies”. Accordingly, five submarines were ordered, to be built at Barrow by Vickers. Sons and Maxim, under licence from the Holland Torpedo Boat Company of America (later to become the Electric Boat Company).
The founder of the Holland Torpedo Boat Company was John P. Holland, an Irish emigrant to America. He had long had an interest in submarines seeing them as a means of demoralising, or even destroying, the English Fleet.
His first submarine design was for a one-man boat, 16 feet long, the propeller being mechanically driven by the occupant. But the later development, Holland No.1 was fitted with a 4hp Braton petrol engine.
By 1893, development of the working submarine was well advanced, and the US Naval Board recognised that there was a place for the submarine in naval warfare, and laid down a set of requirements for naval submarines. These requirements were met by a boat of Holland’s design, and in 1895 he was awarded a contract to build a submarine boat for the US Government.
Development proceeded rapidly from here, and the design destined to become the Royal Navy’s Holland No.1 was, it is thought, America’s Holland Number 10 known as the Adder Class. Working drawings supplied to Vickers had many discrepancies and in some particulars were obviously incorrect.
But building went on to these plans, and it was only after the boat almost turned on end during dock trials that Vickers were allowed to make modifications. The problems were due, in part, to the difficulties of communication with the Holland Boat Company, and the fact that construction of the RN Holland 1 was ahead of the prototype Adder Class - the drawings had not been proved.
In the American design no periscope was fitted; the only way to see was to look through a scuttle in the conning tower. A periscope of British design was fitted to one of the Holland’s. This was a hinged periscope, raised and lowered on a ball and socket joint on the hull. The target was only upright when ahead; when abeam it was on its side; when astern it was upside down. During the Holland construction programme, association with the Electric Boat Company was severed and Vickers seriously began the task of designing submarines themselves. It is interesting to note that Vickers’ association with the Electric Boat Company was renewed in the 1960’s, with the construction of Britain’s first nuclear-powered submarine was called HMS Dreadnought. The five Holland Class were completed by mid-1903 at a cost of 35,000 Pounds each. Although they were poor sea boats and could dive to only 100-feet, they were sufficiently successful to convince the Admiralty to continue the development of the submarine. Holland’s 1 to 3 were sold to T.W. Ward for breaking up in 1913, but Holland 1 foundered off the Eddystone Lighthouse, while in tow.
Holland 4 was deliberately sunk by gunfire during experiments in October AD-1912 and Holland 5 sank while on tow from Portsmouth to Sheerness. Incredibly, in April AD-1981, the wreck of Holland 1 was found, and it was hoped that she would be raised to take her place alongside HMS Alliance at the submarine museum at Gosport.
Holland Class main particulars.
Length overall 63ft 10in.
Beam 11ft 10in
Depth, pressure hull 11ft 10in
Displacement,
surface 113 tons
submerged 122 tons
Diving Depth 100 feet
Speed,
surface
design 8 knots
service 7.4 knots
submerged
design 7 knots
service 6 knots
No. of shafts 1
Propeller 1, three blades, 6ft diameter
Endurance,
surface
design 355 miles (max)
service 235 miles(max)
submerged 20 miles at 5 knots.
This information has been gathered by me from research of documents released to the local records office, and is sent out for information for anyone with an interest in the subject, and for enjoyment of ex-submariners.
A FREAK OF SEAMANSHIP.
This is a tale that most men who sail know about; but it was new to me and perhaps it is to you. I learned about it from an old seaman while sat yarning one day, and I believe it is in the book by John Euller “Ships and the Sea”. The date was December 30, 1899. Captain John D.S. Phillips had just got the news. The navigator had just finished working out a star fix and brought Captain Phillips the results. His ship the “Warrimoo”, position was spotted at about latitude 0 degrees 30 minutes north and longitude 179 degrees 30 minutes west. His ship was halfway through the waters of the mid-pacific on her way from Vancouver to Australia. First mate Daylon broke in “ Captain, do you know what this means? We’re only a few miles from the intersection of the Equator and the International Date Line.” Captain Phillips knew exactly what it meant, and he was prankish enough to take full advantage of the opportunity for achieving the navigation freak of a lifetime.
In an ordinary crossing of the date line it is confusing enough for passengers because they lose a day, but the possibilities he had before him were sure to confound them for the rest of their lives. The Captain immediately called four more navigators to the bridge to check and double check the ships position every few minutes. He changed course slightly so as to bear directly on his mark. Then he carefully adjusted engine speed so he would strike it at just the right moment. The calm weather, the clear night sky and eager co-operation of his entire crew worked successfully in his favour. At precisely midnight, local time, the “Warrimoo” lay exactly on the equator at exactly the point where it crosses the International Date Line.
The consequences of this bizarre position were many.
The Port side of the ship was in the southern hemisphere and in the middle of summer.
The Starboard side was in the northern hemisphere and in the middle of winter. The date in the aft part of the ship was December 30, 1899.
The forward part of the ship was in January 1st, 1900.
The ship was therefore not only in two different days, two different months, two different seasons and two different years, but in two different centuries---all at the same time.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Moreover, the passengers were cheated out of a New Years Eve celebration, and one entire day. December, 31, 1899 disappeared from their lives for all time. There were compensations, however, for the people aboard the “Warrimoo” were undoubtedly the first to greet the new century.
Captain Phillips, speaking of the event many years later, said “I never heard of it happening before, and I guess it won’t happen again until the year 2000!”
So, if you are on a ship, crossing the Pacific in December 1999, and the Captain starts to alter course, and slows down, then stand by, for you are about to have an experience of a lifetime.
TUG BOATS
The former Barrow Docks steam tugs, which over the years, performed many duties, have always taken a bit of a back seat over the many ships that could not have moved into or out of the dock system without their help. Since the docks were built, the vessels that performed the duties of moving other vessels have been many and varied. They range from the early Paddle driven boats, up to the more modern and up to date, and more powerful sea going ships that can handle the might and tonnage now being produced by the shipyards. In the 1940’s, two of the well known tugs working the Barrow docks, were the steam driven sister tugs Ramsden, skippered by Geoff Charnley, and the Furness.
The Ramsden and the Furness were the local workhorses until the larger Roa and Rampside took over. It is understood that the Furness had a certificate to carry passengers.
The last two tugs that were steam driven, and saw many years service, were the ROA and the RAMPSIDE, although not a lot was known about them until the story of the Empire Tugs was told in a book of that name by W. J. Harvey and K. Turrell published by the World Ship Society in 1988.
It appears the two vessels were classed as Empire tugs because all their original names were pre-fixed by the word Empire, a style adopted by the British government for most of the merchant ships built to its orders in British shipyards, and a smaller number bought , requisitioned, captured and lease/lend vessels. Eventually about 400 vessels were allocated an Empire name and the extensive list included 145 new tugs built for the government, of which the ROA and RAMPSIDE were two.
RAMPSIDE was previously the Empire Fir, launched in December, 1941 and was of the “Warrior” class while ROA, launched in October, 1944, was the Empire Polly and of the “Foremost” class of tug.
Throughout the war the Empires remained under government ownership with their management being entrusted to commercial shipping concerns, mainly towing companies. At the end of hostilities most were declared surplus to requirements, put up for sale and bought by towing firms both here and abroad. There were eleven different classes of tug and all were powered by triple expansion engines.
RAMPSIDE, as Empire Fir was built by Scott and Son with the engine built by Plenty and Son of Newbury. It was sold, after its Barrow service to Nicolas E Vernicos Shipping Co., Ltd of Greece and renamed Vernicos Fani II.
It was later sold in 1980 to Baboukas and Sons of Piraeus, for breaking up. ROA, as the Empire Polly, was built by Hall and Co., of Aberdeen who also provided the engine and, like RAMPSIDE, was sold to Greece and renamed APOLLO.
It was broken up in 1986. Barrow ship-owners, James Fisher and Son, also owned two of the Empire tugs which worked on port activities at Heysham, both being broken up by T W Ward and Son at Barrow in 1968. Still on the theme of the name Empire, there shows up in the Local Yard List, that a number of the Empire boats were built at Barrow and are listed below:-
Yard No Name Type Launch Owner
768. Empire Gale Cargo Ship 29-04-1941 Ministry of War Transport
769 Empire Morn Cargo Ship 01-07-1941 Ministry of War Transport
787 Empire Baxter Cargo Ship 08-10-1941 Ministry of War Transport
788 Empire March Cargo Ship 20-02-1942 Ministry of War Transport
827 Empire Noble Cargo Ship 13-11-1943 Ministry of War Transport
856 Empire Elaine Cargo Ship 30-07-1942 Ministry of War Transport
857 Empire Charmain Cargo Ship 25-11-1942 Ministry of War Transport
858 Empire Viceroy Cargo Ship 08-04-1943 Ministry of War Transport
859 Empire Admiral Cargo Ship 26-03-1945 Ministry of War Transport
So the work at the local yard contributed to the wartime merchant fleet as well as producing many ships for the Royal Navy