RN Light Fleet Carrier Disposal c.1960

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Hano

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One thing that caught my eye in my recent sojourn at The National Archive (TNA) was a file labelled 'Proposal to convert obsolete aircraft carriers into mother ships for trawler fleet 1959-1960' (TNA MAFF 209/1811). Sadly I didn't have time to investigate further, but does anyone know anything more about this? I appreciate it was one of the more off the wall ideas from the period but there's a certain humour in it.
cheers
H
 
Hano said:
One thing that caught my eye in my recent sojourn at The National Archive (TNA) was a file labelled 'Proposal to convert obsolete aircraft carriers into mother ships for trawler fleet 1959-1960' (TNA MAFF 209/1811). Sadly I didn't have time to investigate further, but does anyone know anything more about this? I appreciate it was one of the more off the wall ideas from the period but there's a certain humour in it.
cheers
H
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Huh. I wonder what they thought the advantage might be? The only thing that comes to mind is using the vast hangar deck for sorting, storing and freezing the fish--like a big factory ship. That said, you could see freighters being a more suitable vessel for this kind of work.
 
That likely eventually led to this short lived project: http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,14696.0.html
 
blackstar said:
Huh. I wonder what they thought the advantage might be? The only thing that comes to mind is using the vast hangar deck for sorting, storing and freezing the fish--like a big factory ship. That said, you could see freighters being a more suitable vessel for this kind of work.
Click to expand...
The advantage was probably seen as sunk costs. How big an advantage this was, and how vital a 'mothership' for the trawler fleet was seen, is clear from the countless retired aircraft carriers roaming the seas in support of Britain's vast distant-waters trawler fleet.

Oh, wait....

This would've been a ship to support the distant-waters fleet, which operated as far afield as the Barents Sea, with meteorological, medical and technical support, along similar lines to the somewhat later, and smaller, Miranda, seen here:
http://nigelhadley.org.uk/page3.html

Given the larger size of an ex-carrier, I'd expect that such a ship could house some amenity facilities for the trawler crews, too - the distant-waters fleet historically had dreadful conditions and it was a dangerous job, with not a few Parliamentary inquiries into safety and conditions.
 

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