Royal Navy Trip to Chatham

A group of the Navy section had an extremely informative and enjoyable trip to Chatham on Field Day (10 March)  The trip began with a Cold War submarine -HMS Ocelot-, now held in one of Chatham’s dry docks. This was extremely well received, and set up the day nicely. Then we visited the ropery, learning how rope (up to 31 miles long) was made at Chatham and still is to this day. The building used to make the rope was a quarter of a mile long, and quite a spectacle in itself. Next, we were left to explore the docks without our tour guide, and split into two groups to observe what the rest of the docks had to offer; this included a look at some RNLI life boats, and other military equipment and machinery in an impressively sized hangar; we visited the site’s museum, which included intricate model boats –made of bone- and the old woodwork for a revolutionary ship, the Namur; finally, we boarded two more retired vessels: HMS Gannet- a 19th century patrol ship, HMS Cavalier- a destroyer commissioned in 1944.

All in all, thanks to the staff at Chatham docks, Mr Gauntlett, Dr Randall and Mr Whalley, the trip was very successful.

By Andrew Rogers, 10M1