HMS VENTURER Sweepdeck

1974 HMS VENTURER during Vermex

David Sainsbury on the molgogger, Dickie Clarke on the left, Wilf Phillips on the right whose explanation is:
We were sweeping that day south of the Isle of Wight, with a new rig, “armed CTS” (we had not done this before), more of this later. Dickie Clarke screamed for Colin Radford (CREA), fog had come down, radar had decided not to play ball. At this time the ship got to the end of the lap and started the turn, the loop went berserk, and I mean berserk.
Armed CTS had T Mk 8 explosive cutters on the sweep wire plus an extra pipe noise maker on the sweep wire. The “trials squadron” had we were told had done trials on this rig, but they did not inform us that that had NOT attempted a turn.
The only way we could recover this was to grab what we could and drag it in in an enormous heap, trying all the time to keep the explosive cutters out of the way, we could not use the sweep winch or the reel, as the knitting was sweep wire and loop complete. The heap must have been about 6 feet high and covering the sweep deck.
More shouts for Colin Radford, no joy, he was trapped down the naval store but released later in Vernon creek when we had sorted the heap out.
Now we needed a new loop, on the jetty was a brand new shinny loop, so off I go to the mining shed in search of authority. All I could find was the duty LREM, after a lot of discussion/argument he agreed with me. Off we go back to sweeping, everyone was happy, sadly the new loop broke. I had managed get my hands on a new style loop with aluminium electrodes instead of copper, for evaluation and trials. I think we had generated considerable unhappiness!

Leave a comment