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  • #31
    Originally posted by DeV View Post
    ?????????
    After the BG bought POLARBJORN in 2013 she was renamed HMS Protector and continued her support to the British Antarctic Survey. In 2014 as PROTECTOR she was in the Caribbean doing Humanitarian Assistance Training and carrying out projects in the British Virgin Islands. She was bought from the Norwegian owners for £51m after refit.

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    • #32
      Part 2 of the Captains account of events after the incident that almost saw an RN vessel sink Off the South American coast.
      Ten years ago, the Royal Navy’s Ice Patrol Vessel HMS Endurance catastrophically flooded. Her main engine room filled to the deckhead within 30 minutes. Such was our remoteness our Mayday call went unanswered. The crew and I spent the next 24 hours fighting for our lives. This focuses on how my priorities shifted from the immediate incident to managing a crew for whom uncertainty became a dominant feature


      Alongside in Punta Arenas
      Punta was to be our home for the next month, so it only seemed reasonable to head to the nearest pub and make sure that they were suitably stocked. Most of the ship arrived at the same conclusion and so it was that the stories started. Humour, relief and fatigue prevailed; close-calls and anecdotes were pieced together.Two have stuck in my mind from that first night ashore. The first was myExecutive Warrant Officer who, in tried and tested military fashion, gave me an excellent compliment via the medium of a thinly veiled insult:
      “Sir, do you know what you did well?” … “[Here we go…] What’s that Mr P?” … “Nothing.”
      What he meant (I subsequently established) was that I hadn’t interfered in anyone’s business. I’d remained calm, interjected at the right times and in the right manner and kept myself free to make the big decisions as required. He may have then have bought me a pint – even more remarkable. The second was more significant and involved one of the engineers who had been in the engine room at the time of the breach coming up and seemingly confessing to having caused it. All I could do at that stage was ensure that he was first in the queue for the investigation that was due to start the next day. I was pretty sure that what actually caused the flood would be far more complex than the actions of a single individual do so we left it at that.
      The flood attracted almost no media scrutiny. Somewhere between the Fleet Headquarters and the MoD press office a decision was taken to suppress all coverage. Achieving this was made easier by the remoteness of the location, proximity to Christmas and, brutally, because no one was badly hurt or worse. The reason was clear: avoid causing naval embarrassment. I remain certain that proactive dialogue with the national press could have enabled a distinction between ‘pre-flood circumstances which “due to the ongoing investigations would be inappropriate to comment”’ and ‘post-flood actions to save the ship’ to have been made.
      Media suppression resulted in the documentary team that we’d had embarked for the last four months; being treated as pariahs. When their documentary, Ice Patrol was released on various channels, including National Geographic, it was not proactively pushed by the Navy and the online links to it were removed sighting sub judice and the ongoing investigations. Whether or not this suppression was the right decision, the end result was a lack of recognition for what the ship’s company had accomplished

      The next part of the article will go into what caused the flooding.
      For now, everything hangs on implementation of the CoDF report.

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