Last week we had 943 unique visitors to Jackspeak. Of those visitors, 323 came back for more than one look. The Jackspeak homepage was opened 1269 times. The most popular blog is the one written by Capt Bennett on 23 Jan 09 when he was Commanding Officer of DARING (our Type 45 destroyer). This blog is often the top blog, and we find that the other T45 blogs are always popular as well. Capt Bennett hads now moved on from this appointment, but we are hoping that we have been successful in recruiting a new Jackspeaker from HMS DARING (DARING has now been commissioned, so we are now allowed to call her ‘HMS’). Wacth this space to find out if we’ve been successful !
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Whilst news of my final blog may not fill too many people with sadness, for me it has a particular melancholy feel to it. I was informed about 2 weeks ago that I was to leave DARING at the beginning of May, to take up a new appointment as Commander of UK’s Amphibious Task Group. A fantastic job, but brings to an end my intimate relationship with DARING with a great deal of unfinished business.
Last time, we were licking our wounds after our formal training period with the Flag Officer Sea Training Staff. Three weeks further on, we are concentrating on developing our warfare ability in the early stages of the long road to operational service.
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We have spent the last 2 weeks being put through our paces by the staff of the Flag Officer Sea Training. We were alongside for one week and then spent 5 days at sea putting the theory into practice. Called ‘Preliminary Sea Training’, the period is designed to check out our routines, our ability to deal with peacetime incidents and an opportunity to be exposed to new skills that will stand us in good stead as we start to develop T45 warfighting ability.
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After a week alongside spent catching up with maintenance as well as some defect rectification we are back at sea. The week in Portsmouth allowed us to settle into our new base port, to face-to-face with the support agencies that answer our requests for help and, even, for some, some leave. We sailed in good shape with all machinery in proper working order. We proved it of course, by sprinting across to Portland, testing everything to its full extent …..not quite the gently running in period that we might do with our cars. We do indeed stop in 5 ship lengths from full ahead to full astern!
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We are now cutting across the English Channel after a 2-hour stop off DARING’s affiliated Island of Guernsey. With press onboard, the weeks of planning for our first entry are starting to become reality. Once again, there have been some challenges, not least the weather. The Irish Sea was at its worst on Saturday night and many of the Ship’s Company were introduced to the dubious pleasure of sea-sickness. All well by Sunday lunchtime, when we took a couple of hours off to do a Concept 2 rowing competition. Two machines were set up on the Flight Deck and while the engineers did some full power trials and the Ship threw up a huge wake, a few brave souls rowed their hearts out. We have also completed a series of aviation related exercises, in preparation for the arrival of a MERLIN helicopter while at anchor on Monday.
Happy New Year!
The Ship’s Company responded well to the challenges of running this new warship over the Christmas leave period. Everyone is now back onboard and we are sprinting towards that final hurdle, endorsement to go to sea. Briefings, exercises and a great deal of individual research are underway with a growing anticipation, and a little trepidation, of the moment that we cast off from Glasgow and sail for Portsmouth.
As a mid 40, moderately low tech captain of a very high tech ship, the concept of a blog is fairly new to me. Nevertheless, with 2 teenage daughters to encourage me, I thought it might be of interest if I provided a few thoughts on one of the most exciting projects in Defence at the moment.
It does not seem very long since Daring came back from her final contractor sea trials. Since getting back alongside, the ship builder has been busy preparing Daring for her handover to The Royal Navy. Less than five weeks from now Daring will be flying the White Ensign and the ships company will be living on board.
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