Robert, here's an exerpt from me memoir about steering ghear....

There was a funny incident when we were setting up for the lecture in the sumptuous surroundings of the Antiquaries. John Robinson had come to help us and to listen to Peter’s lecture. I had first met John when I started the LTP, he was Keeper of Navigational Instruments at the Science Museum in London and also had responsibility for a fund called The Fund for the Preservation of Scientific and Technical Knowledge. At one point it looked as though we could get some funding by that route but it never actually happened. John was a big gangling lad, I say ‘lad’ but he was about the same age as me. As far as I could see John had a lovely life, he spent a lot of time travelling round the country by train, First Class of course, and the rest of his working life in the back rooms of the museum. He was a regular visitor at Hey Farm and Vera always used to have to dismantle his thermos flask to clean it. John only swilled it out and it was usually filthy! He had an ex-Wrens blue canvas hold-all and the joke was that this actually held ‘The Fund’. He didn’t drive because his eyesight was so bad he wouldn’t have been safe. This problem was compounded by the fact that he was always losing his glasses or else sitting on them! His office at the museum was a glorious clutter of valuable papers and art. Evidently there was a convention that lesser works of art in the cellars of the various galleries of London could be loaned to institutions like the Science Museum and hung in offices. His desk was a jumble of documents and artefacts. I chided him about it once but he told me he wasn’t as bad as another member of staff at the museum. Legend had it that this man once lost his umbrella on his desk and it was open at the time!

If the picture I am giving of John sounds harsh, believe me it isn’t, he was and still is a most disorganised man but charming with it! I remember one day he asked me to drive him to Manchester to catch the London train. We hadn’t a lot of time to get there but just about enough to do it in comfort. On the way he decided to stop at Bury to have a look at a steam roller which the Bury Railway Society had asked for funding for. This detour, while it didn’t take long, really put the pressure on me and I managed to get him on the platform just as the train was about to leave. At this point he threw me completely by ignoring the train and getting into deep conversation with a lady on the platform. This was Jane, a friend of his and I stood there watching them talk as the train drew out! I even took pictures. They decided they would go off for a meal and I was invited, I can’t remember now what I did. The most prominent memory of that day to a man who was brought up to believe that ‘Punctuality is the politeness of princes and the courtesy of kings’ was the fact that after all that trouble and stress he had failed to board the train!

Back to the Antiquaries; there was a young man there, a regular helper at the place, who kept referring to John as Lieutenant Commander Robinson. I knew John was in the ‘Wavy Navy’, the Royal Naval Voluntary Reserve, but I didn’t know he was a Lt. Commander! I’ll bet he travelled First Class on their business as well! Evidently the young man was in the service as well. Every now and then John used to go to sea to play at being an officer, remember he was almost blind without his glasses, and he told me once it came their turn to play with a minesweeper. Unknown to them, during a refit, the steering gear had been set up wrongly, the stop had been left off the end of the gear quadrant that actually moved the rudder. The first time they put the wheel hard over to that side the pinion dropped out of mesh, the rudder jammed hard over and all they could do was sail around in circles in the middle of Portsmouth harbour. John said they never lived it down.

Picture of a Reefer's (Refrigeration Ship) refrigeration machinery.

Stanley. I can believe it. Once you start the refrigeration plant, it pulls a tremendous amount of energy. Understandable when you think about it. Several thousand tons of bananas under refrigeration pull a lot of amps etc. The Silver Tower, used to sail from Antwerp to Columbia empty.

Or should I say skim. When she was empty she didnt, sail she bounced from one wave to another. 28 Knots cruising speed.