Chatham - Day 91

Chatham - Wednesday 10th August 2011 - Day 91

This is to be another day of tourism, Bill went off to do the laundry and shopping, while my reason for coming to Chatham was to visit the Historical Naval Dockyard.

HMS Ocelet

The dockyard was only a ten minute walk from the marina, unfortunately I had to queque for half an hour before gaining entry, usual excuse was given, the computer.  More staff and tills would of cured the problem.  I was informed to go straight to the submarine and was fitted into the next organised tour.  'Ocelet' was built at Chatham and was a diesel electric attack submarine.  The tour guide first took us to the forward torpedo room and escape hatch.  Then through the accommodation, galley and heads before finding our way to the control room.  Here we were all given a go at looking through the attack submarine which gave a very clear image of the dockyard.

Pretend Submariner

From here we moved onto my domain, the engine room.  I was amazed at the amount of machinery which had been packed into this space.  Being diesel electric the diesels drove generators which kept the batteries topped up, of which there was 440 of them.  These drove the propeller motors and supplied the rest of the submarines power.  The electrical switchboard was a eye-opener and a full time operation for the electricians.  We carried on to more accomodation aft and the escape hatch.  It was a pleasure doing the tour and trying to imagine serving on such a submarine where you spent 10/12 weeks submerged while on operations which included shadowing other Russian submarines.

HMS Cavalier

This is another Chatham built ship HMS Cavalier, commissioned in 1944 and served during the war on Artic convoys and in the Mediterrean.  She took part in famous race with another destroyer, in which she won, attaining a speed of 32 1/2 knots.
You were allowed to wander around the ship mostly on deck, the operations room, bridge, wardroom and mess decks.  Unfortunately, not allowed in any of the machinery spaces.  This is a fine example and a well preserved fighting greyhound of the ocean.

HMS Gannet

This ship is presently being refurbished with the renewal of its foremast, some of its decks, while all of its machinery has been removed.  You have free access on this one and can wander all over her.  Built in the 1890's she is a fine example of a sail, steam combination and spent most of her life in the middle east on gunboat duty.  The number of men who served on her was amazing and trying to work out where they put everybody is hard to imagine, of course in those days none of these ships' had air conditioning.

The Big Store

Within this structure they used to build wooden ships.  It is amazing all those years ago they had the fore-thought to build under cover.  It is thought to have been the largest wide span timber structure built in Europe. It had a mezzine floor built in 1904 and was used to store ships' boats.  Today the bottom floor is used to store the larger items of the Dockyard and Royal Engineers Museum with steam hammers and marine engines.  Bridge building equipment, large transporters and bomb disposal vechicles.

Lifeboat Exhibition

Within this building is also the RNLI historic lifeboat collection with fifteen lifeboats raging from the old pulling and sailing to the modern all weather boats. These are wonderful exhibits and the photo shows the lifeboat 'Grace Darling' which was based at Seahouses.  They have a boat house with winches and the heavy tractors they use to launch these boats.  All very interesting with accompanying stories, medals and archive film of previous rescues.

The Ropery

 The final part of the day was spent on the guided tour of the Ropery.  This site is still manufacturing rope to this day and started here in the 1600's.  Each of the wooden warships built at Chatham required twenty miles of rope for its rigging.  You are taken through the process of starting with hemp in bales and spinning into yarn.  The yarns are then layered to form the rope.  This process has never changed and the machinery used today are still the same and the Ropery is 1000 feet (350 m) long.

At night we got the No.151 bus and went into the centre of Chatham but were very disappointed.  Most of the High Street shops had steel shutters and the two pubs visited were not up to our usual standard  We returned to the marina by bus and had a meal in the Sail & Trades again, a very nice steak and ale pie, and stir fry.  It had been a long day and I had achieved one of my goals to visit the Dockyard Museum and I was very happy .