Thread: Victualling the trip.

mate where's the bloody eggs for the bacon

you cant have bacon without eggs its not possible

.....and mushies....gotta have piles and piles of mushies....cooked in butter






.......how many heartattcks is that....1....2.....working on my third

You forgot the mince, I remember a deployment where the fridges broke down for a week, lived of green bread and mince, curried, chillied etc.

24yrs RAN

This was only a portion of the stores used for a 6 mnth deployment to the UK.

From, 28 April 1977 to 4 October 1977.

Jake, 24 yrs in, you will remember the hundreds of 20 Ltr frozen milk cans that we carried on board. The hundreds of boxes of frozen steaks, all the drums of detergents and cleaning products. spare parts, etc. It seemed to take longer to store ship, than it did to do the trip. Sound familiar?

Fuel used, 15,705 ton of bunker oil at an average of 98.15 ton per day.
The old girl could burn over 200 ton per day when pushed.
Diesel for generators and flight deck vehicles, 213,157 gallons.
This also doesn't count the petrol for the rescue boats outboards and the skipper's car.
Aviation fuels, both AVGAS and AVCAT, no idea, but we carried almost as much AV fuel as main ship fuel,about 400 to 500 ton of each. AVCAT was also used as a cleaning fluid, in the Engineering workshops.
Hard stores and munitions not counted.

And of course, those in the know, will remember the Patrol Boat supply Officer
(junior), out of Cairns in the early days, who forgot to order toilet paper.

Ahh, the good old daze.

Shorty.

bought a new kevlar vest did we MN???

Wasn't our fault, little ship turn wrong way, big ship can't stop, trip over little ship, hurt little ship very badly. Little ship die and sink. Men died. Twice, NM, somebody made a bad call and good men died.

She also had some really stupid ones, like the Norwegian frieghter that came into Wooloomooloo Dock, between Garden Island Naval Dockyard and Fort Denison, too close in, couldn't manouver, and rammed the side of Melbourne. Smashed $2.5 mil worth of high tech aircraft landing system.

Melbourne was tied up at her normal wharf at the time.

Or, the time she was out at the Ammunitions moorings, all flagged up with warnings and small boats patrolling etc, and bam, the Manly ferry had swerved to miss a sail boat, and ran straight into a 30,000 ton Carrier (Melbourne) and smashed an anti-aircraft gun off its mountings.

Every single time, the skipper of the other vessel, had disregarded international navigational orders for the prevention of collision between ships at sea.
And every single time, the skipper of the Melbourne carried the weight. Why? Because he was the senior officer. HE, should have made sure every officer and man under his command knew their job implicitely.

Anyhow, it's late, I've had a day in and out and under my Landy, fixing lights and general servicing. I think I shall make a Milo, and toddle off to my bunk.

Shorty.

Being "after the Melbourne" I find this stuff very interesting, thanks guys!

Lucky enough to be in Darwin when the Enterprise was there (Aircraft carrier not Star Trek... it's allright trekkies you didn't miss it!)

It isn't possible to comprehend just how big these things are till you are in a large vessel (120ft sail boat) and you feel like a tonka toy!

Cookie, we steamed past Enterprise in Subic Bay, 72. Remove Melbourne's island and masting, she would actually fit in Enterprise's hangar. Have to remove the top one first of course, she has 2 hangar decks, below her flight deck.
Steamed into San Diego in early 77, 7 Naval Air-stations around the harbour, carriers everywhere. Cheecky bloody yanks, rigged up a harbour landing craft with a false deck and island, so we Aussie's in our "quaint little" carrier, didn't feel like the small guy in town. So we invited them to game of "friendly" rugby.

Shorty.