Some nostalgia - Gooseander Owners MoD (Navy) Registered Keel Laid Type of Ship Boom Defence Vessel Launched 12/04/1973 Commissioned 10/09/1973 Ship Details Length Overall Launch Details Length B.P. 48.8 metres Weather Beam 12.2 metres Time to Water Depth Mld 5.5 metres Draught 3.35 metres G.R.T. 923 tonnes DWT Compliment 58 Officers and Men Engines English Electric Paxman type 16 RPHM turbocharged diesel producing 660 Bhp Props Slack & Parr 3 blade c-p-type Speed 10 knots Other known names 2006-UTEC Surveyor Current Status Still active as far as we are aware, believed to be in the middle of a legal wrangle tied up in Malta Ships History Once a ship had been built and launched she then had to be out-fitted, and then complete sea trials before being handed over to her new owners, in the case of a ship for the Royal Navy, she would also have to go through her commissioning trials before being excepted in to the senior service. RMAS GOOSANDER (A164) was part of the same order from the Admiralty which saw HMS HERALD built at the Leith Shipyards of Robb Caledon (Henry Robb) She was a Mooring and Salvage/Boom Defence vessel of the Wild Duck Class and she was built at the same time as her sister ship Pochard with both ships being built on the same slipway. As she was an order for the MoD (Navy) her build was carried out in the Imperial measurement system as the Navy had not changed to the metric system which had came into effect in the U.K. in 1970. As part of the Royal Maritime Auxiliary Service she was to be based in her home port of Rosyth before moving to Greenock in the 1990s, this capable little ship was designed and built to fulfil many different roles in peace time and in War a real working ship. With her two Bow Horns she was capable of raising 400 tons from the seabed over her bows. With a crew of 58 she was also to play a part in the Falklands War along with a few other Leith Built Ships she was part of the large Task Force that eventually re-took the Islands back for Britain from the invading Argentine Forces in 1982 she was in fact the smallest vessel in the fleet. She was part of an attempt to save a badly damaged Argentine Submarine the Santa Fe in South Georgia but due to very heavy weather the attempt was abandoned. RMAS GOOSANDER was laid up for some time after this at Brooke Marine in Lowestoft, England before being sold to commercial interests in the 1990s and she was to ply her trade doing survey and salvage work in the waters off the West African coast. In 2006 she was re-named UTEC Surveyor
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 15:02:17 +0000