240 CHALLENGER 



three-week cruises, returning alternatively to Londonderry or 

 Portsmouth for fuel. She paid one visit to Punta Delgada, her last 

 foreign port of call, where on this occasion the men could get 

 onshore to enjoy the delights withheld from their predecessors 

 of 1942; and in the terrible gale at the end of January, 195^3, 

 she was in the Shetlands again after so many years, riding out the 

 winds of 100 miles an hour, nearly the whole complement of 

 her officers and many of her crew suffering from raging influenza. 

 She lost a boat alongside in this terrible weather. Divers who 

 were flown up from Rosyth when the wind moderated were able 

 to recover this craft within a day or so. 



The spring and summer of 19^3 were unpleasant, gale after 

 gale swept the North Atlantic and the old ship lay many days hove 

 to, her old bones creaking as she rose and fell. One great wave, 

 £o feet or so in height, rolled towards her. Those on the bridge 

 held their breath and stared, then it broke over her quarter, 

 making her falter as she rose to it and breaking and scattering her 

 boats stowed on the quarter-deck. But steadily she battled through 

 that last stormy summer in the North Atlantic and in September 

 sailed into Portsmouth, and paid oft for the last time. 



As she had taken over from the old Iroquois over 20 years before, 

 so now another new survey vessel was ready to take her place. 

 Vidal was complete at Chatham, a fine modem vessel with every 

 piece of up-to-date surveying equipment, including a helicopter 

 for landing survey parties upon the mountain tops, and a com- 

 plete chart reproduction outfit of the latest type, far removed 

 from Challenger'' s old flat-bed press that she had carried with 

 the Eastern Fleet. How many surveyors had spent happy and 

 adventurous days in this well-loved ship ! Each remembered the 

 ship as he knew her — white and spick and span anchored off a 

 tropic island in her early days in the Caribbean, the trade wind 

 bringing the scent of the land ; grey and drab in war time, fighting 

 a gale in northern waters, the wind stinging the eyes of those 

 upon the bridge; camouflaged and curious, nosing through the 

 reefs of Torres Strait, the breeze warm as the blast from a 

 furnace. 



The author remembers her far out on the Pacific, a blue dome 

 of sky above, great depths beneath, a white speck in an empty 

 world. It is the forenoon onboard and the lifebeat of the vessel's 



