ENNERDALE RFA

[aukepalmhof]

Built as a tanker under yard no 1132 by the yard of Kieler Howaldswerke A.G., Kiel for the Anglo Norness Shipping Co. London.
31 August 1963 launched under the name NAESS SCOTSMAN.
Tonnage 30.112 gross, 16.255 net, 47.470 dwt. dim. 710 x 98.7 x 51.10ft., draught 37.6 ft. Length between pp 680.10ft.
Powered by a Babcock and Wilcox diesels, 16.800 hp., speed 15.5 knots, one screw.
Registered at Liberia.

July 1967 bareboat chartered by the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA), for service East of Suez, after limited modifications she was renamed RFA ENNERDALE.
Officially classed as a Mobile Reserve Tanker, they could not replenishment warships on the high seas, only in ports or sheltered places.
Displacement 62.000 tons.

01 June 1970 loaded with refined furnace oil and gas oil to supply HM frigate ANDROMEDA after striking a submerged object or coral reef, badly holing her starboard side, in a position of 04 29.3N and 55 31.2E about seven miles off Port Victoria, Mahe, Seychelles, she sank on a sandbank.
Her 18 British officers and 42 seamen from the Seychelles safely abandoned the ENNERDALE.
There was a heavy oil leakage from the vessel threatening the Seychelles beaches, A 15 mile long oil slick drifted from the sunken vessel, later removed by the Royal Navy.
Salvage was not possible, and the vessel was completely destroyed by explosives. These explosives including anti-submarine mortar bombs were placed by Wessex helicopters from the ANDROMEDA as strong currents made it impossible for divers to work in the water around the vessel.
Torpedoes fired from the submarine HM CACHALOT finished the demolishing.

Seychelles 1983 10r sg586, scott?

Navicula. Modern Shipping Disasters 1963-1987 by Norman Hooke.
http://www.btinternet.com/~warship/Postwar/RFA/dale.htm

[D. v. Nieuwenhuijzen]

In 1969, RFA Ennerdale, a Dale-class mobile reserve tanker launched in 1962, was diverted from her normal tasking to refuel the South African destroyer SAS Simon van der Stel which was en route to Gough Island, in the South Atlantic, to search for two missing South African meteorologists from the weather station there who had gone on a hike hours before the island was hit by a violent and unexpected storm. The SAS Simon van der Stel's journey took almost two weeks as she endured high seas and foul winds.
Once the South African ship had reached Gough Island, RFA Ennerdale steamed to Tristan da Cunha to collect a 12-man volunteer search party to assist in the search. Although the South African Navy had had many men ashore, searching Gough's unforgiving terrain, before the return of the Ennerdale, they had not managed to locate the missing men. The Tristanians moved off in a different direction from that taken by the original search party and quickly located the bodies of the two meteorologists by noon of the same day. They had died of exposure several days before. The island volunteers sailed to Cape Town with the SAS Simon van der Stel, returning to Tristan on the MV R.S.A. She sailed on to Gough Island collecting the two bodies to take back to Cape Town thus ending a tragic operation.
The Sword of Peace was presented to RFA Ennerdale in 1970, shortly before the ship was lost on an uncharted reef in the Seychelles.
(Tristan da Cunha 2020, £2.50, StG.?)