... let your gimbals swing free whilst I luff up to the trots
Where would the Royal Navy be without boats. No, not ships … boats. Small boats, pi$$ing around on the water for the use of. BRNC had loads of them, a veritable armada of instruments of variable degrees of torture during a cold winter. They littered the River Dart at a place called Sandquay, just below the College. And “just below” is an apt description, as Sandquay was reached by a flight of semi-vertical steps which started near the Chapel and descended in a vertiginous manner to the ‘docks’. There were, if memory serves correctly, about 2,378 steps going down and approximately 4,712 going up - the difference in number being attributed to the fact that Cadets doubled everywhere (as noted earlier) and that going up generally took place whilst being both wet and bloody cold.
The boats ranged from little blue rowing skiffs and RNSA sailing dinghies through assorted larger things with oars and sails (Cutters and Whalers, or the other way round) to motorised craft (Motor Cutter and KR) and really good big stuff (Fast Motor Boat, aka FMB, and the 20-ton Picket Boat, aka PB). Some were drawn up on the tiny beach, others were moored to buoys in the trots, others moored to pontoons or tied up alongside the small jetty. On all these jolly items one was required to acquire a degree of competence as the driver (oops, sorry, Coxswain) to be allowed to go solo (with the requisite number of crew, of course). My Boatwork Logbook tells the tale …
In this priceless historic document are also recorded my daily activities during the afternoon periods designated for “activity”. The weekly summary would, for example, read:
River
Shooting
River
Practical Leadership Exercise
Shooting
River
River
This was then scrutinised weekly by one’s Divisional Officer, who would make pertinent comments such as “With no tests to your credit, you can afford to spend two days a week shooting”. “Sorry, Sir, but target shooting is my chosen sport, not freezing my nuts off in small boats in the pouring rain.” I didn’t say that, of course!
Working your way through the various tests wasn’t just a simple ‘boat work skill process’ … you also needed to be able to get access to the type of boat you needed (with associated crewmen) and a suitable personage to actually conduct the test. That, combined with other distractions, deviations and hesitations (like being nominated as “Duty Crew” ferrying other cadets about the water to their boats) tended to make this a slight PITA. As my regular adverse comments from my DO mounted, so did the other diversions that prevented me from acceding to his wishes. As you can see, it took me nearly 4 months to finally tick off the last test, on the FMB … not helped by the fact that there were only a couple of them, and were thus in high demand by everyone!
I really don’t think I was cut out for the RN … I joined because they took helicopter pilots with a lower eyesight standard than any fixed wing military, and it was thus the only piloting career option open to me. Perhaps I should now shut up for a while, stow my Boatwork Log Book and peruse the memories contained in my RN Form S.1175, aka Pilots Flying Log. That won’t take too long, as you will see.
(Edit ...
Wander00, my Logbook say 1963, so my Course/Division/Flotilla photo must have been then
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