Subs or Whales - The Ultimate Question!!
I was one of the brave souls heading south from Ascension with Harriers, Chinooks, and other stuff that we had carefully placed on ATLANTIC CONVEYOR. Because of limited accommodation on ATLANTIC CONVEYOR, several (most) of us went South on NORLAND in convoy with a bunch of others. We did a classic "War At Sea" WWII convoy zig/zag at what seemed to me to be a fairly slow speed - about 15 KTS. It became clear why we were steaming at such a slow speed, when one of our few Grey Funnel escort ships - presumably using SONAR technology from WWII - declared a submarine threat. The convoy immediately turned to place the threat in its "six o'clock" and went "Full Steam Ahead" or whatever the terminology was in the early 80's. I then realised why the convoy speed was only 15 KTS - because at max welly, NORLAND could only make 15.5KTS. So we were at the back of the convoy as it bravely ran away from the "Submarine" threat.
Probably not the best place to be if there really was a submarine loaded with torpedos in the area!!
I think the threat was finally decided to be a Whale, which probably could not swim at 15.5 KTS, so it carried on with whatever Whales do once our unwelcome presence had gone!!