We booked the larger Nelson Lounge for our February meeting – just as well, as it was packed out for Bob Lane’s account of what becomes of used warships. His sixty years of RN service (so far) must be close to a record. He enthralled the room with his account of the challenges, rewards and dangers of placing ships in reserve, selling them, breaking them, or just blowing them up.

He has been Officer in Charge the Disposal and Reserve Ships Organisation (DRSO) in Portsmouth Naval Base since 1998. As such he heads an organisation comprising twenty sailors and a civil servant which, almost uniquely, returns a profit for the navy. In a fascinating overview he covered the political, environmental, economic, strategic, and safety considerations affecting warship reserve, recycling and disposal, including:

  • The decisions on whether to scrap old ships, sink them or sell them to a foreign navy.
  • Why some ships are scrapped quickly but other sit around for long periods of time.
  • What needs to be removed from a ship before it’s disposed of and what happens to it.
  • How ship breaking is costed
  • How a ship is broken up, how is it towed to the breakers and what crew is needed aboard during the tow.

He enlivened what could have been a dry subject and held the room spellbound, provoking an informed discussion session afterward.

He was followed by Stephen Harvey discussing the innovative and little-known mine destructor vessels Cyrus and Cybele. Designed in 1944 to counter the new ‘unsweepable’ Oyster (pressure) mines by detonating them in a way that allowed the ship to survive, the details remained classified until the late 1960s. Based on a 1942 proposal for an ‘unsinkable’ ship they had no propulsion of their own and were designed for remote steering so that no-one had to be aboard during operations. Cybele was damaged during test and saw no operational use, eventually being scrapped in 1946. Cyrus was used in the Seine estuary, but the remote steering was unreliable, and she became a total loss in January 1945. There is more to discover about these curious ships.

For details of future attractions please see our Events page.