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Our latest MFUK project – a film about the steam ship Shieldhall. She had a useful career in her first life as a sludge steamer. A what? Well, these serviceable ships had a useful, if not exactly glamorous role: taking sewage from big cities out to sea and dumping it in the deep. Necessary from the late 19th century on as cities in Britain grew apace and there weren’t enough facilities to deal with the, erm, outfall, from that. Not such a bad way to deal with the treated sludge in fact: sea action = oxygen + bacteria + motion – essentially what sewage farms do on land. Anyway, after sterling service for Glasgow and then Southampton, the chain was pulled on Shieldhall and she was about to be scrapped. But she’s of special interest  – why..? Catch our next blog…

As well as making the first update on progress on the ship,  Maritime Films UK were asked to make a crowd-funding film, in support of a campaign to raise some £19,000 to help the project. To streamline the process, we did a new edit of our first film, and then filmed ‘Kat’ – Katrina Henderson, the Museum’s Learning and Community Engagement Officer – launching the appeal (picture.) Despite it being a bit nippy, and just half an hour to spare before a key meeting, Kat gave of her best! We cut the film the next day, liaising with Membership and Marketing Assistant Laura Nastase throughout. We had fun (though I think Kat and Laura were glad to get back inside for a warm-up!) Go to the National Museum’s Indiegogo page, or visit www.nmrn.org.uk if you can help with a bit of cash.

As well as the work on the guns – the most dramatic part of the ship – M33 is undergoing a facelift: which means removing years and years of rust and old paint. But – not all of it! Current thinking on preserving old artefacts holds that the process of decay is part of the story (up to the point where the actual object itself is in jeopardy.) So, the team from Ian Clark Restoration are careful not to overdo it, showing how the ship was changed over the years by her life experiences. It’s all the more important to take this careful, custodial approach as so much of what was original in M33 has been removed in the many changes she went through in her career. But she’s still very much the ship she was – and will be, for all to see.

Here’s the aft  6” gun on HMS M33, under refurbishment – a weapon that shelled the Turkish positions in the Dardanelles, in support of British, Australian and New Zealand troops ashore; clinging by their fingernails to narrow beach heads as the brave and determined Turkish army held them off for month after month, with appalling casualties on both sides. M33 is our last living link to that campaign. It was prompted by Turkey’s catastrophic decision to ally herself with Imperial Germany and her war aim of dominating Europe. Real respect grew between the foes at Gallipoli – nonetheless a disaster which hung around Winston Churchill’s neck for many a long year, as First Lord of the Admiralty and main instigator of the campaign. Luckily that didn’t daunt him, or drive him out of politics. Just 25 years later we needed him badly.

Filming first update movie on the WWI monitor HMS M33. A lot has changed since we were last there, and I was hopping about like Long John Silver, on a duff right leg giving me a load of gyp. Ships are about the last places you want to be if you’ve got an injury like that. It’s all up and down – obviously – and as for the steps going into the dock itself, well they’re at a 60⁰ angle. Triff! Anyway (see picture) M33 is now encased in a kind of giant carrier bag, stretched tightly all the way over her so as to protect the work that’s going on, and the workers doing it. Otherwise bad weather – always threatening in coastal locations like Portsmouth – can hold you up a lot. Great progress has been made under that carrier bag, though…

About the pic in a minute, but first – an apology: no blogs for too long, the product of injury mainly. Back with you!

The pic shows a Salvare Worldwide ‘SeaPod’ (http://www.salvare.co.uk/seapod.html)

If your boat sinks, you must get out of the water fast (most in-sea fatalities are caused by hypothermia – you fall asleep in the cold water and never wake up.) So getting out of the water is vital. But a life raft can be hard to board – there’s nothing to push against to lever yourself up.  SeaPod comes in a small bag. You take it out; throw it overside; it inflates automatically; both sides are up; and there’s just a couple of inches to climb over to safety. Visibility around 2 kilometres (and most rescues happen in hours.) We’re hoping to make Salvare a film about this lifesaver.