PLYMOUTH, UK (1 Dec 2003) -- Former crew members and dockyard workers gathered in Plymouth on Saturday to bid a fond farewell to ex-Navy frigate HMS Scylla. More than 100 people gathered on the 2,500-tonne ship's windswept deck at Devonport Dockyard to reminisce about the times they spent on her, and to explore the vessel that will soon find a home at the bottom of the sea. The last warship to be built at Devonport dockyard, HMS Scylla was bought from the Ministry of Defence by a consortium headed by the National Marine Aquarium (NMA) and funded by the South West Regional Development Agency for £200,000 last month. She will soon become Europe's first artificial diving reef after she is scuttled in Whitsand Bay, Cornwall in April next year. In her new role, the NMA hopes she will make the Westcountry Britain's diving capital, attracting leisure divers and marine biologists, as well as generating an anticipated £1 million a year for the region's economy. On Saturday, she was remembered as a proud naval vessel, who sailed all over the world with her 270-man crew before limping home to retire in 1993. Royal Navy Captain Mike Booth was the last commanding officer and travelled on two deployments with her during his two years as her commanding officer. He said: "First we sailed to the Mediterranean to take part in some exercises with native crews, then we went across to the Falklands and up the coast of South America. My fondest memory of Scylla was taking her up to an enormous glacier in South Georgia in the Falklands, and sitting there watching the sealife play around us. "By the time we were ready to go home Scylla was starting to feel her age and hiccuping and coughing along. I'm very pleased with what the future has in store for her. She is going to go on for another 50 years giving pleasure to other people as she did to us." Throughout the day, groups donned hard hats to be taken on their last tour of the ship before she becomes an underwater playground for divers and wildlife. | | HMS Scylla HMS Scylla will now be prepared for scuttling by a specialist team aided by artificial reef experts from Canada. She will be sunk by a series of small charges detonating a chemical which can cut through metal at a rate of 6,000 metres a second. Scylla will be submerged in under three minutes and take up her permanent residence about 20 metres below the surface in Whitsand Bay. Melanie Cowie, spokeswoman for the NMA said: "When Scylla is finally placed on the seabed, the story of her new life begins. "Using divers and strategically placed webcams, we will be able to research and monitor the incredible marine life that will inhabit Scylla." She added that some visitors to the ship were planning to take diving lessons to see Scylla again. SOURCE - Western Morning News |
