… exactly what the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Hartlepool has done for RML 497. Here in the car park a prefabricated shelter has been built for this greyhound of the seas. The aim now, over many months, is to let her settle and dry out, while planning continues on how best to display her to visitors. Dry out..? Well – she’s a wooden ship, and her hull has done half a century’s hard work, and her “double diagonal” construction (effectively two hulls with planking laid at opposing angles, separated by specially treated calico) though very strong, is prone to rot. Since these doughty ships were hardly expected to survive WWII, we are lucky still to have RML 497. So she deserves all the TLC that Curator Clare Hunt and the NMRN Hartlepool team are going to deliver.
GIMME SHELTER!
02 December 2019
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About Rob
Rob is a TV producer, reporter and camera operator with 30 years’ experience at the BBC, Channel 4 and ITN, in news, factual and documentary production. He is a four times award winner, whose awards include a coveted Royal Television Society award for his work on Channel 4 News. His association with The Maritime Foundation goes back to 1995, when he won the first Desmond Wettern Maritime Media Award for a series of reports that led to a major documentary on the loss of the bulk carrier Derbyshire.