Special Purpose Vessels.
 

I am surprised to note no posts in this section yet.
So, I want to kick it off by mentioning DSV's dive support ships, they play a big role in today's Maritime World. You can see by some of my posts, that I was employed on the Stena DSV's and spent a lot of time in the Falklands and South Georgia, plus the mundane work in the North Sea and years of Work supporting the Thistle A.
Good weather ships could handle everything the North Sea Could throw at us in the Winter, and still manage Heli Crew Changes, though a bit hairy at times.
Not to forget the Achor Handlers and supply ships and their crews, a wee bit different from Cargo ships and Tankers.

Possibly most of us are too long in the tooth to have sailed on such specialised vessels, probably most of us sailed on 4 - 5 hatch vessels with 10 -16 derricks and if we got something with 6 hatches and 18 plus derricks we thought we were on something big, and anything that wasn't a Liberty or an Empire vessel was a bonus. I sailed on vessels from tiddlers of 115 dwt to large 36,000dwt, the 36,000 are now considered tiddlers. Perhaps those who could tell us about the specialised vessels are still young enough to be still working and don't have time to regale us.

Spent the last twenty years working in the offshore, AHTS and PSVs, North sea and various places around the world, big difference to the cargo/Tankers.:):jump: Retired in 2007.

Did some Anchor snatching early 1970s. First experience of the procedure aboard this vessel 'Yorkshireman' UTC. Bit scary sometimes.

Like ICJ 38 I was on the old four and five hatch ships, and up to Big 20,000 ton tankers, the only time any thing special happened was when we had to rig the Jumbo Derrick in Freemantle to unload a train, for me an exciting and interesting time.
Tugger

After a number of years deep sea with cargo, passenger and roro container ships, I transferred to an offshore division of our parent company - Offshore Marine. Master offshore in many parts of the world before coming ashore into the chartering department. Moved on to be operations manager of United Towing, until the company sold off most of its tugs and then consulting in offshore and leisure shipping market. I think this is a similar career path for a number of my contemporaries and maybe it reflects the sharp decline in conventional shipping at the time.

I have to confess that i don't regret my time involved with the offshore world but now happily retired with a great interest in cruising UK Inland Waterways when I can.

Howard

Having spent the early years of my time in the M.N. "Deep Sea" I moved on to work on the Special Purpose vessels of the North Sea, based mainly in Aberdeen & Peterhead. I spent the next 17 years as A.B. & Bosun on Survey Ships, Anchor Handlers and Supply Boats. These hard working ships never seem to get much of a mention on any of the various web sites that I've found. Ex seamen seem to Wax Lyrical about their time on the posh Cruise Ships & cargo carrying Ocean Greyhounds but never anything about these ships that spend their time in the northern North Sea. They never stop, whatever the weather. I had far more narrow escapes & scary moments working on deck of Supply Boats than anywhere else. At one point I was working on what was one of the smallest Supply Boats based out of Aberdeen when we got the charter to become the dedicated ship for the Magnus Field, at that time the northern most field in the British Sector. We spent most of that first winter running out of Aberdeen with a deck full of Drill Pipe and Casing piled way above the safety barriers. The weather was always on the edge and slipping about on top of those loads trying to hook onto the platform's crane, often with snow under foot was sometimes nothing short of terrifying. As my 60th. birthday approached I decided I was getting too old to bang around decks in the North Sea and got out while I was still in one piece. It's a pity nobody has got around to writing the story of these amazing little ships and the hard working boys that crew them.

I was with Star Offshore Services 1978 - 1986. Can hardly believe the number of ships we built and converted in that relatively short period. It was a great time for me but it came to an abrupt end with the downturn in '86!

Greetings Ron.H. and welcome to SH. Bon voyage

The RMAS had a lot of specialist vessels, mostly designed around the armed forces requirements. Fleet and experimental trials vessels, Admiralty mooring vessels, sonar propagation vessels, de-gaussing vessels, armament vessels, research vessels, torpedo recovery vessels, etc. These vessel types were true seagoing vessels and much different from the naval base harbour/smooth water vessels like tugs, fleet tenders and small tankers of one kind or another. That's not to say they didn't go to sea as many of them did if the tasking required it. All run by private contractor now - Serco Defence. Many of the seagoing tasks have ended as the RN has shrunk in size. Much of the mooring work was done on behalf of the RAF - bombing targets of one type or another around the UK coast; many of these now removed.