RFA Forward Fleet Repair Ship Diligence (A132) photographed in Liverpool on 29 April 2015.  

She was built in Landskrona, Sweden by Oresundvaret AB as Yard Number 276 in 1981 and was originally an offshore support vessel.

She first served the Royal Fleet Auxiliary during the Falklands War as a civilian vessel taken up from the trade. She was purchased by the UK Government in 1983 for £25m and renamed Diligence after which she sailed to the Clyde Dock Engineering facilities where she was converted to military use with weapon systems, workshops, supply facilities, accommodation and stores before being commissioned into the fleet on 12 March 1984.  

Overall she is 112m long with a 20.5m beam and 6.m draught.  

Armament consists of two 20mm Oerlikon Cannons, 4 No. 7.62mm Machine Guns and 4 No. Mk 44 Miniguns.  

Diligence is designed to provide forward repair and maintenance facilities to ships and submarines operating away from their home ports so in addition to workshops she can also provide electrical supplies, fuel and water. Her workshops and stores are fully equipped with specialist machinery and parts.

Liteyny Prospect photographed on the Solent early afternoon on a cold 1 November 2014.

Built by Daewoo Shipbuilding Marine Engineering in 2003 she is 249m long with a 44m beam and 14.8m draught.

GT = 62,586, NT = 34,823 and DWT = 114,546

Upto Feb 2007 she was called Stena Contender.

She is part of the SCF fleet, this is an all-union commercial foreign trade association “Sovcomflot” which was re-formed as a joint-stock commercial enterprise in 1988. Sovcomflot is Russia’s largest shipping company and a  leader in the maritime transportation of hydrocarbons as well as the servicing and support of offshore exploration and oil & gas production. The company’s fleet (owned & chartered) specialises in hydrocarbon transportation from regions with challenging icy conditions and includes 153 vessels with a combined deadweight of about 12.8 million tonnes. A third of these vessels have a high ice class.   

Sovcomflot is one of the largest ordering customers of civil ship-building in the Russian Federation.

The company is registered in Saint-Petersburg and has representative offices in Moscow, Novorossiysk, Murmansk, Vladivostok, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, London, Limassol, Madrid, Singapore and Dubai.

MMSI - 636011642
REG - LR, Monrovia
IMO - 9256078
Call Sign - A8AP6 
Crude Oil Tanker
Built -  Daewoo, Okpo, KR
Yard No. 5232
L 250m x W 44m
GT - 6256
Year - 2003 
Solent, 1 November 2014

2015 is the 130th anniversary of tanker shipping on the Black Sea.

The industrial extraction of oil in Baku, Azerbaijan, began in the middle of the 19th century. It was transported in barrels and then in bulk along the Caspian Sea to Astrakhan and then along the River Volga. By the end of the century it has been reported that Russia was producing more oil than anywhere else on earth. In 1883 a railway was built between Baku and Batumi in Georgia, which gave Azerbaijani oil a new gateway to the international market – the Black Sea.

The Russian tanker Svet (deadweight: 1,700 tonnes) ordered by the Nobel Brothers Petroleum Company was built to export oil and kerosene.In 1885 she became the first tanker to enter the Black Sea. 

Svet was 89.5 metres long and 11.6 metres wide with eight cargo tanks. Her load draft was 4.5 metres. Her rigging spanned 240 m2. The tanker’s top speed with sails set was 7.5 knots, she had a crew of 50.

Photograph taken of a naval memorial during my visit to Portsmouth on 6 April 2015. We got the early morning Fastcat from Ryde on the Isle Of Wight over to Portsmouth where we spent the day before returning late afternoon.

The bell itself is a reproduction, the original was removed from the captured North West Fort, Taku on 17 June 1900 but was during the Second World War removed for safekeeping to protect it from damage by bombing, it was not found again until the 1960's when it was replaced. The bell however suffered from vandalism and was removed again, it is reported that the original bell was returned to its original home in China in the 1990's. 

The battle of Taku or Dagu Forts was during the Boxer Rebellion between the Chinese Military and Allied Western and Japanese naval forces, the allies captured the forts but only after a brief but bloody battle. The memorial has a bell and four plaques commemorating the men lost from the ship during this engagement.

HMS Orlando took an active part under Captain J.H. Burke in suppressing the Chinese outbreak. The ship was the first to arrive on the scene and it was her Naval Brigade which originally undertook the defence of Tientsin. At the beginning of the operations the Orlando had a complement of 486 officers and men of whom 31 were sent to Peking, 112 to Tientsin, 104 accompanied Sir Edward Seymour, 99 took part in the capture of the Taku Forts, and 16 were on other duties leaving 124 on board. With all these men absent, the Orlando steamed 900 miles and brought the Chinese Regiment from Wei-Hai-Afei. Captain Burke died on the passage home, her casualties were 5 killed and 26 wounded."

HMS Orlando an Orlando Class Armoured Cruiser built by Palmers Shipbuilding & Iron Company in Jarrow, she was laid down on 23 April 1885 and launched on 3 August 1886. She was sold for breaking up on 11 July 1905.

With a displacement of 5600t she was 91m long with a 17m beam and 6.9m draught.

She had a 3-cylinder triple-extension steam engines with two shafts and 4 double-ended boilers giving a top speed of approximately 18 knots and a range of 10,000nm at 10 knots.

Crew  complement was 486.

Armament consisted of 2 x 9.2inch guns, 10 x 6 inch guns, 6 x 6 pounders, 10 3 pounders and 6 No. 18 inch torpedo tubes four of which were above the water firing broadside the other two being submerged forward and aft. 

A photograph taken on 7 April 2015 of the gate to HMS Nelson in Portsmouth. 

This was formally the entrance to the first naval barracks in Portsmouth which was called HMS Victory. 

The gate is dated 1902 and uses parts of the old Portsea Quay gate which was built in 1734. 

The central part of the arch has the Admiralty crest and the gates have the royal cipher and crest together with the date.

Photograph taken in the Steamer Inn in Shanklin last week whilst I was on holiday.

This is the emblem of HMS Onslaught which is four white cutlasses with gold hilts on a blue field. 

The plaque reads:- 

'PRESENTED BY THE LORDS COMMISSIONERS OF THE ADMIRALTY TO THE BOROUGH OF RYDE IW TO COMMEMORATE THE ADOPTION OF HMS ONSLAUGHT DURING WARSHIP WEEK MARCH 7th 1942' 

Warship weeks were part of British national saving schemes during the Second World War where a community adopted a warship. A level of savings would be set to ensure enough money was raised to provide for the the building of a particular type of ship. The aim was for cities to raise enough to adopt Ballteships and Aircraft Carriers whilst towns and villages would focus on cruisers and destroyers. The total amount raised for the war effort is recorded as being £955,611,589 with some 8 No. battleships, 4 No. Aircraft Carriers,
49 No. Cruisers, 301 No. Destroyers, 25 No. Submarines, 164 No. Corvettes and Frigates and 288 No. Minesweepers being adopted. 

HMS Onslaught (G04) was a Oribi Class Fleet destroyer ordered from Fairfield of Govan on 3 September 1939. She was laid down on 14 January 1941, launched on 9 October 1941 and finally completed on 19 June 1942. 

Her motto was 'Fierce In action'. 

She had a complement of 175 men and and was 105m long with a 11m beam and 4.11m draught. Displacement was 1560t. Propulsion was provided by twin Pearson geared steam turbines (30,000kW) giving a top speed of 37 knots and a range of 3,850nm (at 20 knots). 

Armament included 4 x single 4.7 inch Mark IX guns, a single 4 inch Mark V gun, 1 x quad 2 pounder, 6 x single 20mm guns, 1 quad 21 inch torpedo launcher for MArk IX torpedoes and  four throwers and 2 racks for 70 depth charges.  

She took part in convoy escort duties throughout the war including the Arctic Convoys and during the Battle of the Atlantic, she also undertook patrol duties in the English Channel during the Normandy Landings in 1944. 

After the end of hostitities she was deployed for training duties at the Portsmouth Gunnery School and in December 1945 she was detached to take part in Operation Deadlight which was the destruction of surrendered U-Boats in the NW Approaches. Between 1946 and 1949 she was used as a submarine target ship in the Clyde. The ship paid off early in 1950 and put on the disposal list before being transferred to Pakistan on 3 March 1951 and renamed PNS Tughril. In 1957 the ship was converted for use as an Anti-Submarine Frigate and remained on the active list until 1975. She was scrapped in 1977.

Figurehead from the Battleship HMS Illustrious photographed in Portsmouth on 7 April 2015. 

The figure head is of King George III.

HMS Illustrious was a 74 gun Fame Class battleship ship of the line, she was ordered on 4 February 1800 and built and launched by Randall & Brent at Rotherhithe on the River Thames in September 1803, as a third rate vessel she was one of the most common battleships in the Royal  Navy and saw service all over the world.

She had a length of 53m with a 14.48m beam. 

Armament consisted of 28 No. 32 pounders on the main gun deck with 28 No. 18 pounders on the upper gun deck, 14 No. 9 pounders were also located on the quarter deck with a further 4 No. 9 pounders on the focasle. 

In 1803 she was commanded by a Captain William Shield  and in 1804 under the command of Captain Sir Charles Hamilton sailed from Deal with HMS Imperieuse and HMS Squirrel together with a number of sloops and gunbrigs to cruise off Boulogne. In April 1804 she sailed again with HMS Immortalite, HMS Squirrel and HMS Seine and a number of small vessels to escort block ships filled with stone to sink at the entrance to Boulogne harbour. In September 1804 she recaptured the vessel Mary of Greenock which was trying to get to a port in Spain after being captured by the French privateer Uncle Tom during her outward bound passage to the West Indies.

In 1805 together with HMS Ajax she detained the  Spanish ship Santa Maria which had sailed from Havana with a valuable cargo consisting of 10,000 dollars, several hundred ounces of gold in dust and ingots, 140 bales of cotton, 150 bales of wool, hides, hogsheads of beef, cocoa and sheets of copper. Later in 1805 she was with Vice Admiral Collingwoods squadron of six 74's off the coast of Spain and on 7 July 1805 she and HMS Ramillies captured the French privateer schooner Josephine of 2 guns and 35 men.

In the autumn she escorted home a large convoy from the Leeward Is.

During 1806 and 1807 she was involved in the blockage of Cadiz.

In 1809 she was involved in the attack on the French fleet in the Basque Roads and in 1811 assisted in the taking of the fortified camp of Meester Cornelis which after bombardment was captured following an assault by troops and marines, during this action the Illustrious had one sailor killed a second sailor missing ashore and three marines were wounded. 

In 1810 she was part of the fleet that captured the Ile de France and in 1811 took part in the Invasion of Java. Following a refit in Portsmouth she was laid up in reserve until 1832 when she was recommissioned. Laid up again in 1845 she was later used as a guard ship, a hospital ship and a gunnery training ship before being broken up in Portsmouth in 1868.

Elsa Essberger (IMO 9481001, GT 4807, 2013) seen heading up the River Mersey on 19 March 2015 bound for the docks on the West side of the river at Birkenhead.

She has a tank capacity of 6386.6m3 and is powered by a STX 4 stroke 8 Cylinder Diesel Engine (4000kW, 5835hp) giving a top speed of 14 Knots.

The vessel is managed by John T Essberger BV of Hamburg in Germany and is one of approximately 26 vessels in their fleet. They operate primarily in the Baltic, North Sea and Mediterranean, the Company was formed in 1924 by John T Essberger a German Naval Commander and is still a family run company.
 
Part of the Princes Dock landing stage can be seen to the left next to the modern mooring posts the larger ships use when visiting Liverpool.

Unfortunately I was again without my camera and this photograph was taken with my phone, I tried using the zoom facility on the phone but the quality was rubbish.

I am going to the Isle Of Wight next week on holiday via Southampton and my camera will definitely be going with me.