From Captain Rhett Hatcher Royal Navy
Navy Command Commanding Officer HMS PROTECTOR BFPO 367 Email:
[email protected]
‘Faith for duty’
30th June 2013
Dear Families and Friends, This newsletter marks the end of a really successful deployment for HMS PROTECTOR during which the Ship’s Company has exceeded expectations and delivered a significant UK and RN capability in the Antarctic and South Atlantic region. In April the Ship sailed back from South Georgia via a short visit to Barbados to allow for a watch rotation and a little well deserved down time for the Ship’s Company. Unfortunately we brought rain with us to the island, but with the warm welcome and vibrant culture more than made up for the rather grey weather and the locals were definitely grateful for the rain!
‘Volleyball’ - Royal Navy style Crossing the North Atlantic back to Portsmouth, we made the most of the positive change in weather and especially enjoyed the calmer seas. The opportunity was taken to conduct long overdue upperdeck maintenance and engage in some rather unusual upperdeck sports. Made all the more difficult by playing on a moving deck, using rags wrapped in ‘pussers’ black masking tape for balls or a volley ball wrapped in a net and tied by string to the deck to prevent it going overboard; competition remained fierce as all migrated to the upperdeck as the temperatures rose. Bucket-ball (basketball with a bucket!) and Ship’s volley ball should become Olympic sports as they demand an inordinate amount of skill, poise and balance to play. We will continue to hone our skills in the run up to Rio Games 2016 just in case we are needed...
Bucketball During the transit home Able Seaman Scott and Able Seaman Broadhead undertook a charity run on the Ship’s running machines in the forward hold under the main deck. Between them they ran an outstanding total of 260 miles (the distance from Portsmouth to Ipswich and back) over several days to raise money for the East Anglia Children’s Hospice (EACH). The money raised brings our total charity pot for the deployment to just over £900 and we very much look forward to presenting EACH a cheque when we visit Ipswich later this year.
On reaching UK waters, we paused briefly in Plymouth Sound to embark Commodore Richard Farrington CBE RN, Commodore of the Devonport Flotilla, and some of his staff for a short visit and brief on the headlines from the deployment before sailing to Pompey over night.
”Procedure Alpha” for our arrival into Portsmouth We arrived home to a very grey and windy Portsmouth on 10 May counter-balanced by a warm welcome from by Rear Admiral Woodcock OBE, the Naval Secretary and the dockyard support team. During our short week in Portsmouth the Engineering Department, represented by Lt Valvona, Lt Russell, CPOET Sabin, CMEM Brice and LET Fietze, were presented with the 2012 Fleet Engineering Excellence Award at Navy Command Headquarters. This award is presented annually to an individual or department, ashore or afloat, considered to have made the largest single contribution to the effectiveness or engineering; a great effort by the team especially given the high standards elsewhere across the Fleet. An extremely proud day for the Ship and richly deserved recognition of the hard work and resilient team spirit shown by the whole department as they kept us fully operational on deployment. I know that the brief period alongside in Portsmouth allowed some members of White and Blue watch personnel to get home and visit families but, as we seamlessly start our regeneration for the next deployment, all thoughts were on the next milestone, a Technical Stop in Denmark. Sailing only a week later on 17 May, we transited the Dover Strait, through the River Elbe estuary and into the Kiel Canal; a 61 mile stretch of man made waterway that connects the North Sea to the Baltic Sea and cuts out a long, and potentially lumpy, journey around the Jutland Peninsula. Despite some very foggy conditions which necessitated having the siren on for long periods (not good for peaceful sleeping!), the transit was a pleasant one with the canal passing through scenic towns and under impressive bridges; PROTECTOR was much admired by onlookers and I am sure we now feature on many a German digital camera!
Arriving in a commercial dockyard just outside the Danish city of Odense, the Ship was quickly ‘docked down’ and work began in earnest with preparing and repainting the hull where the ice and many thousands of miles at sea had worn off previous layers. Besides the painting, significant work was carried out all over the Ship; from a new Ship control and dynamic positioning system and an overhaul for all engines, generators and thrusters to new ovens for the chefs in the galley and even a new mattress for everyone onboard! Sea trials proved successful and we have returned to Portsmouth, this time the long way round via the Kattegat and Skaggerak prior to commencing a number of external assurance checks and starting the next stage of our generation plan for this year.
I am very conscious that we haven’t been able to ‘relax’ into a post deployment period alongside in our home base but equally aware, and most grateful, that you are all there supporting us now and in what will be a busy and important few months to come. Our period of training under the Flag
Officer Sea Training (FOST) will be hard work and I am sure testing at times but once on the other side of it in October, we will know that we are best prepared for the programme ahead, able to focus on the 2013/14 deployment and importantly settle into the routine of watch rotation. In the meantime, I very much look forward to meeting as many of you as possible during the Ship’s visit to our affiliated city of Cambridge (via Ipswich) and our Families Day in July and August respectively.
Sincerely, Rhett Hatcher
