#sinking — Public Fediverse posts

GitHub Is Sinking

https://dbushell.com/2026/04/29/github-is-sinking/

#HackerNews #GitHub #Sinking #Tech #News #Software #Development #Open #Source #Developer #Community

Is this why the area around the Zócalo is bit smelly? #mexicocity #sinking
Up to 2cm a month: Nasa keeps track as Mexico City sinks into the ground
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/07/mexico-city-sinking-subsidence-2cm-a-month-nasa-nisar?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Is this why the area around the Zócalo is bit smelly? #mexicocity #sinking
Up to 2cm a month: Nasa keeps track as Mexico City sinks into the ground
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/07/mexico-city-sinking-subsidence-2cm-a-month-nasa-nisar?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Is this why the area around the Zócalo is bit smelly? #mexicocity #sinking
Up to 2cm a month: Nasa keeps track as Mexico City sinks into the ground
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/07/mexico-city-sinking-subsidence-2cm-a-month-nasa-nisar?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

https://www.europesays.com/iran/100030/ Tehran: US Lying about Sinking Iranian Boats #about #allegedly #boats #claims #commercial #dismissed #Forces #has #Hormuz #in #Iran #iranian #Islam #Lying #naval #of #sank #Shipping #Sinking #six #strait #Tehran #that #the #threatening #Times #US #vessels #were

Here's a story from #Kinktober where #Amber and her friend #Bree go on an urban exploring trip and end up falling victim to a DSO #clown #doll!

https://subscribestar.adult/pyperhaylie
#sinking #comic #digitalart #blonde #brunette #peril #did #damsel #distress #helpless #posession #spirit #paranormal

Here's a story from #Kinktober where #Amber and her friend #Bree go on an urban exploring trip and end up falling victim to a DSO #clown #doll!

https://subscribestar.adult/pyperhaylie
#sinking #comic #digitalart #blonde #brunette #peril #did #damsel #distress #helpless #posession #spirit #paranormal

for chaz, dana's found herself in a bit of trouble.
piece out of a bigger sequence, but this is my fav pic from it.
#mud #quicksand #WAM #charr #sinking

Biden seizes on Trump's sinking favorability in a combative speech in South Carolina

https://misryoum.com/us/us-news/biden-seizes-on-trumps-sinking-favorability-in-a/

Former President Joe Biden stood before a South Carolina crowd on Friday and took aim at President Donald Trump's State of the Union address."Is he still talking?" Biden asked, to laughter.The reference to Trump's Tuesday night speech, which went on...

#Biden #seizes #Trumps #sinking #favorability #combative #speech #South #Carolina #US_News_Hub #misryoum_com

The #Forgotten #Sinking That Was 6x #Deadlier Than The #Titanic : Medium

The #Science behind some of the #World’s #Fastest #Ice : Nat Geo

The #AI #Boom's #Surprising #Winners aren't even #Tech companies : Misc

Latest #KnowledgeLinks

https://knowledgezone.co.in/resources/bookmarks

#1boy #1other #2girls #2others #angel_(evangelion) #ayanami_rei #blue_eyes #blue_hair #blush #bodysuit #brown_hair #cloud #comic #commentary_request #cosplay #crossdressing #eva_02 #evangelion_(mecha) #fujitaka_nasu #full-face_blush #gaghiel_(evangelion) #hair_between_eyes #hand_on_another's_head #hand_on_another's_neck #highres #holding #ikari_shinji #interface_headset_(evangelion) #long_hair #mecha #mecha_pilot_suit #monster #multiple_girls #multiple_others #musical_note #neon_genesis_evangelion #orange_hair #plugsuit_(evangelion) #red_bodysuit #red_eyes #robot #science_fiction #short_hair #sinking #sitting #sky #souryuu_asuka_langley #souryuu_asuka_langley_(cosplay) #speech_bubble #translation_request #two_side_up #upside-down #wavy_mouth https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/4177985

Building Damage Risk In Sinking Indian Megacities
--
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-025-01663-0 <-- shared paper
--
https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-annals-X-G-2025-613-2025 <-- shared paper
--
https://www.downtoearth.org.in/urbanisation/writing-on-the-wall-groundwater-exploitation-is-triggering-subsidence-in-indo-gangetic-plain-90523 <-- shared media article
--
#GIS #spatial #mapping #spatialanalysis #India #subsidence #risk #hazard #groundwater #depletion #exploitation #pumping #sinking #overpumping #aquifer #watermanagement #structural #damage #infrastructure #cost #residential #publicsafety #economics #engineering #construction #buildingcodes #remotesensing #model #modeling #satellite #earthobservation #elevation #megacities #city #cities #urban #differential #settlement #planning #policy #mitigation #maintainence #inSAR #verticallandmovement #VLM #engineeringgeology #geostatistics #flood #flooding #sediment

Increased Flood Exposure In The Pacific Northwest Following Earthquake-Driven Subsidence And Sea-Level Rise
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https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2424659122 <-- shared paper
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https://oregoncapitalchronicle.com/2025/05/02/big-one-coupled-with-rising-ocean-could-leave-many-in-northwest-living-in-flood-zones-study-finds/ <-- shared media article
--
#GIS #spatial #mapping #coast #coastal #sealevelrise #sealevel #SLR #climatechange #PNW #PacificNorthWest #Cascadia #flood #flooding #risk #hazard #exposure #damage #infrastructure #publicsafety #geology #fault #faulting #engineeringgeology #subsidence #earthquake #floodplains #omgoing #spatialanalysis #model #deformation #modeling #roads #residents ##Washington #Oregon #California #subduction #communities #management #planning #mitigation #coastalengineering #sinking

New Zealand's Major Cities Are Sinking
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/lauriewinkless/2025/04/16/new-zealands-major-cities-are-sinking/ <-- shared media article
--
https://doi.org/10.1080/00288306.2025.2470435 <-- shared paper
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https://www.searise.nz/ <-- linked to NZ SeaRise project page
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https://searise.takiwa.co/map/6233f47872b8190018373db9/embed <-- NZ SeaRise web map
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#GIS #spatial #mapping #NewZealand #sealevel #sealevelrise #SLR #impacts #humanimpacts #land #subsidence #sinking #population #growth #risk #hazard #global #GMSL #coast #coastal #planning #management #mitigation #extremeweather #climatechange #cost #economics #infrastructure #spatialanalysis #spatiotemporal #model #modeling #remotesensing #earthobservation #sentinel #InSAR #urban #city #cities #reclamation #cut #fill #Holocene #engineeringgeology #kiwi #k1w1 #NZ #stormsurge

Groundwater Pumping Is Contributing To The Subsidence Of Major U.S. Cities
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https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/05/08/climate/sinking-cities-us-causes-groundwater.html <-- shared media article
--
https://doi.org/10.1038/s44284-025-00240-y <-- shared paper
--
#water #groundwater #subsidence #city #cities #spatialanalysis #spatiotemporal #engineeringgeology #engineering #risk #hazard #pumping #overpumping #waterresources #USA #America #sinking #infrastructure #damage #cost #economics #repais #mitigation #sealevelrise #flood #flooding #foundations #urban #remotesensing #earthobservation #satellite #elevation #measurement #change #vertical #movement #geology #soils #model #modeling #prediction #waterresources #farming #agriculture #watersupply #industry #well #riskassessment #landuse #monitoring #management #utilities #growth #population #demographics #construction #sprawl

Attention-Worthy Links for December 22nd, 2024

https://bit.ly/awl122324

#BCI #Neurotech #ALS #paralysis #neuromodulation #oaks #PETM #Quercus #temperate #Northern #Hemisphere #Southeast #sea #level #rise #NOAA #tides #Greenland #sinking #TikTok #Ban #Influencers #Extinction #dinosaurs #extinction #climate #volcano #meteor #Chicxulub

Attention-Worthy Links for December 22nd, 2024

https://bit.ly/awl122324

#BCI #Neurotech #ALS #paralysis #neuromodulation #oaks #PETM #Quercus #temperate #Northern #Hemisphere #Southeast #sea #level #rise #NOAA #tides #Greenland #sinking #TikTok #Ban #Influencers #Extinction #dinosaurs #extinction #climate #volcano #meteor #Chicxulub

Attention-Worthy Links for December 22nd, 2024

https://bit.ly/awl122324

#BCI #Neurotech #ALS #paralysis #neuromodulation #oaks #PETM #Quercus #temperate #Northern #Hemisphere #Southeast #sea #level #rise #NOAA #tides #Greenland #sinking #TikTok #Ban #Influencers #Extinction #dinosaurs #extinction #climate #volcano #meteor #Chicxulub

@bmdv
https://youtu.be/7C-vYY3SBDE
😉
#lifeguard #küstenwache #sinking #thinking

That Sinking Feeling! - In Explore by S2TDD

https://tmblr.co/Z7VXvxehdiRGim00

#boat #sinking #water #adur #river #sussex #westsussex #ripples #blue #nikon #d7500 #flickr #thingsdavidlikes

The ignominious end of HMS Caledonia: the thread about how the Navy’s longest ship ended up as scrap metal on the Forth seabed

Q. What was the largest ship in the Royal Navy at the outbreak of WW2?

A. As any respectable naval anorak knows, it was the 47,000t, 860ft long battleship HMS Hood, the “Mighty Hood“, pride of the fleet and largest warship afloat. Right? Or… was it the Bismarck?

No, the largest ship in the Royal Navy at the outbreak of WW2 was the 56,500t, 956-ft long training ship HMS Caledonia; until 1936 the Cunard-White Star liner RMS Majestic, which until 1922 had been the Hamburg-Amerika liner SS Bismarck. Until 1935, the largest ship in the world

The Bismarck was the 3rd and largest of three Hamburg-Amerika liners built immediately prior to WW1; the others were the Vaterland and Imperator. They were ordered to reclaim dominance and German national pride in the Transatlantic liner stakes from the British Cunard and White Star liners. They were to do this by being both the largest and grandest liners afloat. Bismarck was the last of the trio but before she was laid down, the Hamburg-Amerika line found out that the new Cunard liner Aquitania was to be longer than her, so they hastily rejigged the design to add an extra 6 feet on. They needn’t had bothered, they had made been misinformed and Aquitania actually ended up being 50ft shorter than Bismarck.

It was too late to change the design however and it was too late for her sister Imperator, which had been given the most embarrassingly awful nose job to lengthen her by the vainglorious addition of a massive bronze eagle figurehead which was meant to make her 1ft longer than Aquitania. Fortunately for her appearance this partially fell off during Atlantic storms within a year, and was removed.

Bismarck was launched in June 1914 by a granddaughter of the Iron Chancellor, but this ceremony was jinxed when she fluffed the swinging of the champagne bottle and it only broke on the second attempt: none other than Kaiser Wilhelm II stepped in to give it his best swing. The outbreak of war found her without a purpose, and construction ground to a halt beyond maintenance work. During the war she was stripped of valuable components, wiring and piping and all her brass and copper. The incomplete hulk was ceded to Britain under the Treaty of Versailles as reparations for the loss of the White Star liner Britannic (sister of Titanic), which had struck a German mine and sunk in 1916 while serving as a hospital ship. This was the largest ship lost in the war, but although she sank in just 55 minutes, all but 30 souls on board were saved. Her sister Imperator went to Cunard as a replacement for the Lusitania, the ill-fated liner whose sinking had outraged America and helped drag that nation into the war against Germany.

White Star sent representatives and shipyard engineers from Harland & Wolff in Belfast to Hamburg to supervise completion of their new possession. The whole ship needed re-wiring, and a mysterious fire that damaged her during completion and which the British put down to sabotage by the German workers was probably an electrical fault: this would be a recurrent theme. She completed in March 1922 and White Star officers were sent to supervise her trials by officers and men of Hamburg-Amerika line. This was marred by briefly running aground, but after a week she was accepted and handed over. Her German name was painted out and replaced with Majestic.

A White Star crew arrived and sailed her to Southampton, during which time they repainted her funnels into company colours. She arrived exactly 10 years to the day that the Titanic had departed on her ill-fated maiden voyage. Not only the largest in the world, she was arguably the most opulent, designed by the French architect Charles Mewès. Her German builders had trunked the boiler uptakes around the ships sides (rather than through the centre), to allow for huge, uninterrupted interior spaces, and spared no expense on the specification

Despite being a foreigner in a time when ocean liners were a symbol of national prestige, she was made White Star flagship and was the pride of the fleet. Her first official duties were to be inspected by King George V and Queen Mary, before heading for New York. She settled down to a glamorous 1920s career on the Atlantic, but one that was always marred by the occasional spontaneous fire in her electrical system, and growing cracks in her decks (which grew to 100ft long) as a result of the lengthening job.

The Depression hit the Transatlantic liners hard, already struggling from a downturn in migrating passengers, and in White Star’s case, poor corporate management. The Majestic frequently found herself on “booze cruises” from a very dry and thirsty Prohibition-era USA to help pay her huge running costs. But the cracks grew bigger, the electrical fires got more frequent and the finances grew ever worse. Cunard and White Star line merged in 1934 in a government-sponsored deal. The new company had too many liners and the older ones began to be disposed of; Majestic survived the initial chop, but her card was marked.

With the new company flagship Queen Mary under construction, Cunard-White Star made to dispose of the sister ship Berengaria, which was older and more prone to fires, but the larger Majestic had higher running costs so in 1936 was taken out of service instead.

She quietly sailed her last voyage in February that year and disappeared from the schedules without any announcement on her future. In May she was bought by Thomas Ward of Inverkeithing for £115k (c. £6.6m in 2023), the scrapyard where many a liner and battleship ended its days.

Majestic was taken into dock at Southampton to have her funnels and masts lowered to allow her to sneak beneath the Forth Bridge, but there was a snag – the minor matter of fine legal print of the Treaty of Versailles. Bismarck had been handed over as a prize of war as compensation to White Star, but the terms did not allow the new owner to sell her. Instead, the Royal Navy stepped in and took possession, and “gave” Wards 24 old destroyers of equivalent scrap value in return. Everyone was happy. The lawyers were happy. Cunard-White Star got paid by Wards, Wards got the scrap they had paid for and the Royal Navy got what had been – until 6 months previous – the largest ship in the world, for the price of only a few old rusty relics.

The great liner was now taken in for conversion to an enormous training ship, with capacity for 1500 trainee boys and 500 officer apprentices. Her luxurious fittings – apart from the swimming pool – were stripped out, and the vast interior converted to spartan classrooms. Where once her passengers slept in the most luxurious cabins afloat, the new occupants would sling hammocks from the roof beams in time-honoured Royal Navy tradition. In April 1937 she made her last sea voyage, to Rosyth on the Firth of Forth.

On arrival, she commissioned as HMS Caledonia, named after the Victorian training ship that had once served on the Forth under that name. Her job was to train the boys and young men who would fill the ranks of the expanding Royal Navy in the run up to the inevitable war. By the end of the year there were 1,000 trainees aboard.

The new Caledonia only had an expected lifespan of 4 years, she was to plug the gaps until permanent shore facilities could take over; but she didn’t even make this. On the outbreak of war there was a panic that the Luftwaffe would target her for a revenge sinking. This was not without reason and the first air raids over the United Kingdom during the war soon followed over the Forth with the Royal Navy and Rosyth being the target. And so the trainee boys onboard were packed off to safety in the Isle of Man, the officer apprentices were sent ashore at Rosyth, and the great ship was floated out into the Forth and pumped full of water so she would settle on the sea bed at low tide (therefore couldn’t be “sunk”), to await her fate, or another use.

However the proud old ship had other ideas. Just 26 days after war was declared and a full 17 days before the Luftwaffe arrived over the Forth, she set herself on fire and burnt out, settling on to the bed of the Firth. Her shonky electrical system had the last laugh. With the country now at war with Germany, the niceties of previous treaties could be overlooked, and she was sold to Wards of Inverkeithing – again, for mining as a strategic reserve of scrap iron. She was demolished in situ from 1940-43.

In July 1943, what remained of the hull was patched up and floated around the corner to Inverkeithing, for beaching and final break-up by Wards. This was completed in 1944, her name transferred to a shore station at Oban.

After the war, the name was relocated back to Rosyth, where it was a shore training establishment until 1985. It was rehabilitated again at Rosyth in 1996, where it remains to this day, the Navy’s HQ in Scotland and Northern Ireland. The HMS Caledonia which was once the liner RMS Majestic remains the longest ship to have ever commissioned into the Royal Navy, a full 24ft longer than the modern Queen Elizabeth aircraft carriers. With her loss in 1939, the battleship HMS Hood would regain her crown as the largest ship in the Navy. In a sardonic twist of fate, Hood would be sunk in May 1941 by a German ship named Bismarck – with great loss of life.

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Elon Musk, reborn by the Twitter cards he’s played: “I sink, therefore I am.”
#ElonMusk #Twitter #Wrecksistentialism #Descartes #CogitoErgoSum #sinking #ISinkThereforeIAm

Henry Robb at War: the thread about ships built in Leith during World War 2

I have previously gone into a bit of detail about the last days of Henry Robbs, Leith’s last shipyard. But thought I might also fill out a bit of the middle history too.

The company of Robbs was quite late on the Scottish shipbuilding scene, only forming in 1918 when one of the yard managers from Ramage & Fergusons, Leith’s then major shipbuilder, struck out on his own. That was Henry Robb and his company grew in the post-war slump by buying up slipway capacity from older shipyards. By 1934 they bought over Ramage & Ferguson themselves and became the only major shipbuilder in Leith. The company’s speciality was small, commercial vessels, coasters, tugs, dredgers, trawlers and the like. in the order of 500-1,500 tons displacement and up to 300 feet length. Practices were traditional, ships were riveted together and generally steam powered. In that respect they were little different from any other small Scottish shipyard outside the Clyde. As the clouds of war gathered in the late 1930s, the government suddenly needed *lots* of warships and ways had to be found to get small commercial shipbuilders to build them.

The most pressing needs were for convoy escorts, and to get them build in yards such as Robbs they needed to be small enough, built to largely commercial standards and with traditional techniques. There was initially no time to introduce things like prefabrication or welding. So before war even began, like commercial yards across Britain, Robbs was getting orders for warships. Things started off quite simply but as the war went on, they would produce more, bigger and more sophisticated ships. The first 2 warships were HM Trawlers Hickory and Hazel, Tree-class vessels. Little more than militarised versions of large commercial steam trawlers, they had basic weapons for fighting submarines and were most useful as minesweepers. Both were laid down in 1939, and commissioned in March and April of 1940 respectively. Hickory would be lost 6 months later when she hit a mine and sank off of Portland. 20 men were lost, the survivors were picked up by sister ship Pine. Hazel survived the war.

The next 4 ships built were ordered in 1939 & 40 and were Flower-class corvettes. These were based on the design of a commercial steam whaler by the Smiths Docks Company. They were intended for coastal use but ended up being the initial mainstay of the North Atlantic convoys. Much has been written about the Flower”. One phrase that always follows them around is that “they would roll on wet grass“. They were much too small for mid-ocean use and you can imagine how the Atlantic bobbed them around like corks. But built they were and in large numbers too, and for all their design faults and shortcomings their were there and they were available. Robbs built HMS Dianthus, Delphinium, Petunia and Polyanthus in this initial batch.

Like most Flowers, Dianthus had a busy, tough war, but she also was quite “productive”, sinking the German submarines U-379 off Greenland on 8th August 1942 and U-225 off the Azores on 22nd February 1943.

That last picture is a depth charge; the standard anti-submarine weapon until late in the war. Basically a 400lb drum of high explosives with a hydrostatic detonator that would set it off at a pre-determined depth. It was projected out from the side of the ship by an explosive charge using a device called a “K-gun” (from the shape of the casting). The depth charge could also be simply rolled over the stern from a rack. You then had to vacate the area ASAP or risk being badly damaged by your own weapon. It was crude, it was imprecise, it was hard to use but it was devastating if it got close to a submarine

Polyanthus was assigned to the Newfoundland Command of the Royal Canadian Navy and was lost on September 21st 1943 in the mid-Atlantic, 1,000 miles from Iceland. She was hit by a German homing torpedo of the sort designed to target escort ships. Only 1 man survived. The survivor was picked up by the Frigate HMS Itchen. Just 3 days later, Itchen herself was hit by another homing torpedo and nearly all, including the survivor from Polyanthus were lost. These would be the first 2 ships lost to homing torpedoes.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jcinanshan/16438349711

The others survived the war. Delphinium was scrapped, Dianthus and Petunia were sold into commercial service. The “Flowers” came from a commercial whaler design and were readily adaptable back into such a ship.

In 1940, 7 smaller warships were laid down. Two Bangor-class minesweepers, two Dance-class trawlers and three Bird-class minesweepers for New Zealand. The Bangors were small coastal minesweepers, named after seaside towns. Robbs built Sidmouth and Stornoway. The picture shows Sidmouth (left) next to Bangor. Both survived the war and were sold soon after

The Dance-class were very similar to the two “Trees” built by Robbs the previous year. They were HMT Saltarelo and HMT Sword Dance. Both were sold into commercial service after the war.

The three “Birds” were HMNZS Tui, Moa and Kiwi. Built as minesweepers for New Zealand, they were basically overgrown trawlers and originally intended as training ships for the fledgling service. The little Birds served far from Leith. Moa and Kiwi sank the Japanese submarine I-1 off of Guadalcanal in the pacific on 29th January 1943. Tui sank I-17 off of Noumea on 19th August 1943. Moa was hit by a Japanese bomb and sank while in harbour in the Pacific island of Tulagi. Five men were killed. Her two sisters would survive the war.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/42117802@N06/4374819037

In 1941, Robbs laid down 9 ships. Two more Flower-class corvettes, 2 Bustler-class salvage tugs, 2 Isles-class trawlers, 2 River-class frigates and a single landing craft. The Flowers were HMS Lotus and Pink. Both were commissioned in 1942. Lotus‘ first war action was part of the escort of the disastrous convoy PQ17 in June and July 1942. She sank the submarine U-660 off Oran in the Mediterranean with her sister Starwort on 12th November 1942. Days later they attacked another submarine contact and are credited with sinking U-605, although it may have been U-77 which would escape with damage.

The strange A-frame hung off the front of the ship is an “acoustic hammer”. Basically a modified jackhammer sealed in a steel drum that it would impact against, it was hung in the water and the terrific noise could detonate acoustic mines ahead of the ship. In theory.

Here is a remarkable British Pathé newsreel of HMS “Pink” being launched in Leith, on a chilly day in February 1942.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCoGMllwwjc

Pink heavily damaged the submarine U-358 in the North Atlantic on 5th May 1943, but was torpedoed a year later in the English Channel and was a “Constructive Total Loss”, i.e. she didn’t sink but she would never sail again. She was scrapped in 1947

Lotus was ordered as HMS Phlox, but her name was changed. She was transferred to the Free French Navy as Commandant d’Estienne d’Orves. She survived the war, was returned by France in 1947 and was converted into a whaler, joining Leith’s own Christian Salvesen fleet as Southern Lotus. Her last whaling season was 1962/3. She was towed from Leith (South Georgia) to Norway and laid up to be sold for scrapping in 1966, but was wrecked on tow to Belgium.

The two tugs were Bustler and Samsonia, unusual for British ships of this time in that they were diesel-powered. These were military tugs, designed to sail with convoys and act as rescue and salvage ships. Robbs would build eight Bustlers during the war.

The two Isles-class trawlers were again very similar to the earlier Dance and Tree classes. They were the main class of British WW2 naval trawlers, with some 145 built. Robbs built HMT Skye and Staffa, both of which survived the war.

The landing craft built by Robbs would be the only one they ever built. She was ordered as a Mark II LCT TLC.47 but renumbered LCT.115 for service (LCT = Landing Craft, Tank) She was bombed and sunk off Kasteleriso in the Dodecanese on 28th October 1943.

The last pair of ships from 1941 were the River-class frigates HMS Ness and Nith. The frigates were a much better design of ocean convoy escort than the Flowers, they were basically two sets of corvette machinery in a longer hull. They also incorporated much of the newly developed anti-submarine equipment and weaponry from scratch and many of the lessons of how to try and make the ships more habitable and efficient for their crews.

Nith was present at the Normandy landings. She would be hit by a “Mistel”, a gigantic remote control flying bomb with a 1.8 tonne warhead, on 23rd June 1944 but somehow survived with only light damage. 10 men were killed but Nith was returned to service. In 1948 she was transferred to Egypt as Domiat. In 1956 she was sunk by the cruiser HMS Newfoundland during the Suez crisis after picking a fight she couldn’t hope to win. She became the only ship sunk during the conflict. 69 of her crew of around 110 were rescued.

In 1942, seven ships would be launched. That year was also the peak of production at Robbs in terms of both total launches and total displacement of ships launched. Two Bustlers, four River-class frigates and another Isles-class trawler were laid down. The tugs were Growler and Hesperia. For reasons I’m unclear about, the latter was renamed from Boisterous before commissioning. She was wrecked off Libya in February 1945. Growler was sold in 1947. The trawler was HMT Wallasea, commissioned on 31st July 1943 she would be lost in Mounts Bay just 5 months later on 5th January 1944 after the convoy she was escorting was attacked by German “E-boats”. 17 of the crew of 40 were lost.

The four Rivers laid down in 1942 were Derg, Glenarm, Windrush and Wye. They each took between 350 and 448 days to build, commissioning between June 1943 and February 1944.

Glenarm, named after the Northern Irish river, sank the submarine U-377 on January 17th 1944 in company with the corvette Geranium and the old destroyer Wanderer. She was renamed Strule in February of that year before transferring to the Free French as Croix de Lorraine.

She joined her sister Windrush, which had transferred to France in February as Découverte. Both survived the war and were decommissioned in the late 1950s/early 1960s. Derg would be present in Tokyo Bay in September 1945 when Japan officially surrendered. She was scrapped in 1960. Wye would also survive the war, to be scrapped in 1955.

1943 saw 8 ships laid down and 7 launched. Those laid down were three Castle-class corvettes, three Loch-class frigates and two more Bustler-class tugs. The Castles were an attempt to keep small slipways productive by building a smaller than ideally desirable escort ship that incorporated wartime advances and all the lessons learned with the Flowers. Some prefabrication was used but generally they remained built to old commercial practices.

Flint Castle survived the war, she appeared in the 1955 film “Cockleshell Heroes” portraying a German warship. She was sold for scrap in 1958. The other two Castles were HMCS Orangeville and HMCS Hespeler, they lacked castle names as they were transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy while building. Both were sold for merchant use in 1947, the former to China and the latter in Italy.

The Loch class were a new design based on the earlier Rivers, a design for an ideal anti-submarine ship, incorporating wartime lessons and technology and a design rationalised for rapid building, and modern prefabrication and welding. They had the latest radar, sonar and direction finders, but the main advance was the “Squid”, a weapon that threw three bombs ahead of the ship to land in a triangular pattern around a submerged target.

The Lochs carried two “Squids”. The bombs from one were set to detonate slightly below the other, creating a pressure wave in which the submarine target would be trapped and crushed. It was a horribly effective device, with a 34% success rate; by comparison it could take hundreds of depth charges dropped over hours (or longer) to sink a submarine. Robb-built HMS Loch Insh demonstrated the effectiveness, sinking U-307 in the Barents Sea on 29th April 1945 then U-286 later the same day with the frigate Anguilla and the corvette Cotton. She was sold to Malaysia after the war.

The other Lochs were Loch Fada, Loch Achanalt and Loch Katrine. The latter was built in a remarkable 364 days, entering service on 29th December 1944. Loch Achanalt took a more leisurely 645 days and commissioned just before the war’s end. Both ended up in New Zealand service.

The 1943 Bustlers were Mediator and Warden; the former completed in November 1944 and was sold in 1965, the latter in December 1945 and was sold in 1946. By 1944, with the outcome of the war much more certain, orders were scaled back a bit with only 5 ships laid down, although production of existing orders reached a peak, with 9,347 tonnes of warships launched in Leith.

1944s ships were another pair of Bustlers and three Bay-class frigates. The Bustlers were Turmoil, which completed in July 1945 to be sold in 1946 and Reward. The latter was sold in 1963 but returned to naval service as a tug in 1970. In 1975 she was converted to a patrol vessel to help protect North Sea oil interests as HMS Reward. She was rammed and sunk in an accident in the Firth of Forth, just a few miles from where she was launched, off of Inverkeithing the following year on August 10th by the German cargo vessel Plainsman. She was salvaged the following month and scrapped.

The Bay class were Lochs that had been re-purposed as anti-aircraft vessels. This decision was made as these sorts of ships were much more in need for the Pacific theatre than anti-submarine vessels. None of the three Bays built by Robbs, Cardigan Bay, Padstow Bay or Carnarvon Bay would see any active service in WW2, completing too late.

No more warships were laid down by Henry Robb during WW2, the launches in 1945 being outstanding orders. Three 1943 orders for Lochs were cancelled that would have been 1945 lay-downs; Loch Nell, Loch Odairn and Loch Kishorn. In the 6 years of WW2, Henry Robbs built 42 warships in Leith totalling 42,725 tonnes displacement;

• 7 trawlers
• 8 tugs
• 9 corvettes
• 12 frigates
• 5 minesweepers
• 1 landing craft

1942 was the peak year for number of launches, although a marginally greater displacement was launched in 1944 as fewer, larger vessels were built.

Leith would also be the principle fabrication and assembly yard for parts of the “Mulberry Harbours” used off of the Normandy Beaches, but that’s another story (which you can now read over on this thread).

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