HMS Daring damaged in tug collision

Image via Wikipedia

I’m sure you’ve all seen the reports about how HMS Daring was damaged yesterday in Southampton Water, when a tug – civilian – lost power and collided with her. She was in Southampton for a port visit.

Daring hot-footed it back to Portsmouth today in order to be examined, and as chance would have it I was sitting eating my lunch on the hot walls in Old Portsmouth when she came in.Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me, but I’m sure some pics will surface soon. She’s got a couple of not inconsiderable dents in her starboard side amidships, just above the waterline at tug-level, and a scrape running all the way down to the aft section. Hopefully it looks worse than it is, but it seems that half of the tugs black paint came off onto Daring too! Looks like somebody’s going to be doing some warship-sized panel beating…

The RN has had bad luck in recent years with collisions. Of course there was also the HMS Endurance flooding incident in 2008, and HMS Nottingham almost sank after hitting an uncharted rock off Australia some years ago. I’ve often wondered why the Navy insist on using dedicated tugs when coming in and out of harbour, while bigger commerical ferries glide alongside on their own. The use of tugs is probably down to the HMS Vanguard incident in the 1960’s, when Britain’s last old style Battleship ran aground on Portsmouth Point on her way to the breakers yard. Not too much harm done, but very embarassing…

Stop Press

Theres some footage of the damage here courtesy of the Portsmouth News.

Hugh Quarshie – Who Do You Think You Are?

Finally, a WDYTYA episode that one, has an imperial twist, and two, doesnt try to make us all feel guilty for the British Empire! Actor Hugh Quarshie (Ric in Holby City) is of Ghanaian ancestry. The first part of the programme shows Hugh travelling to Ghana to trace that side of his family tree.

Interestingly, the programme sheds light on the fact that Ghana – known as the Gold Coast – had imperial masters before the British, in the shape of the Portuguese, and then the Dutch. And Quarshie’s family had Dutch blood, in the shape of a Dutch imperial civil servant who married a Ghanaian woman and had children with her. The Dutchman, Peter Kamerling, founded the village where Hugh’s ancestors lived. And when he visits the village, we get a surprise – none of present day inhabitants are bothered about the imperial past. In fact, he is greeted as minor royalty, and other villages who have links with the Kamerlings are very proud of their heritage. Kinda throws new light on the liberal assumption that Empire is terrible and that the natives are always hard done by.

Then Hugh travels to Holland, and manages to trace more records about the Dutch side of his family. And, incredibly, he meets a Dutch descendant of the Kamerlings, who has researched his family tree. Although Kamerling has apparently deserted his Ghanaian family to return to Holland, Hugh finds that his will made provisions for all of his children in Ghana, and he even included their birth certificates in his will in order to prove that they were his children. Although he had left them, he had not forgotten them.

The Dutch Empire of the 17th Century is all but forgotten in the race to lay on the guilt over the British Empire. The Dutch built an impressive trading network, covering parts of North America, the west coast of Africa and the East Indies. The Dutch were methodical record keepers, which helped Hugh trace that part of his family history. But they were also ruthless. I have read an account from modern day Indonesia, where Dutch merchants caught an English rival trading in one of their ports. They chased him, and when they caught him he was cut, and ‘washed in salt and vinegar’. Lovely!

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