RMAS CALDY – Last Steam Powered Vessel
RMAS CALDY – Last Steam Powered Vessel
CALDY was the last steam-powered vessel of the RMAS fleet. She had been Chatham-based since 1956.
CALDY was originally constructed for the Royal Navy by John Lewis & Sons, Aberdeen in 1943. She was a steam-powered, converted Isle class trawler, pennant number T 359. The armament consisted of 1 x 12pdr AA gun, and 3 x 20mm AA guns.
CALDY was 164ft in length overall and displaced 545 tons, the ship’s company was 40 men; Caldy saw active service in WW2, credited with a German aircraft shot down over the beaches of Normandy during the D-Day landings.
Between 1946 and 1951 CALDY was classified as a Wreck Dispersal Vessel, with pennant number DV 5.
In 1956 CALDY was transferred from the RN to the Captain of the Dockyard’s Yard Craft Department. For conversion to a TCV, she was fitted with a suction pump, associated pipework, hoses, and storage tanks. As a TCV she carried the pennant number A 332.
During her TVC career CALDY cleaned the tanks of hundreds of ships from aircraft carriers downwards.
Based at Chatham from 1956, CALDY would also operate in Rosyth and Devonport Dockyards, and Portland Naval Base.
The oil removed from vessel tanks was not wasted, it was collected in CALDY’s sullage tanks where the water and oil were separated, and the collected oil would be re-refined.
When CALDY came to Chatham she had no ships bell, and in accordance with regulations one was drawn from the store on Anchor Wharf. Years later when she was operating at Devonport a crew member spotted a bell in a local junk shop which was engraved ‘Caldy 1943’. He informed the MoD Police, who promptly reclaimed the bell and returned it to CALDY at Chatham.
In December 1981, CALDY left Chatham for the last time. The duties of TCV had been taken over by tug-hauled lighters, so CALDY departed flying her paying off pennant to go into reserve at Portsmouth.
CALDY – a vessel that was perhaps, not the most glamorous nor the most clean but an honourable, hard-working vessel that had a varied career and carried out important tasks.
*RMAS – Royal Maritime Auxiliary Service. A civilian manned service which provided support for the Royal Navy at Chatham and other RN Dockyards and Naval Bases. In 1982 the RMAS fleet at Chatham consisted of over 50 vessels and craft which were distinctively painted with black hulls and buff upperworks. The RMAS was disbanded in 2008 when marine services and support were contracted out to commercial companies.
