Exclusive Feature Serial on www.thisisUll.com Part Two - 1973: Super tug to defend fishing fleet By John Boldock Part One,  Part Two,  Part Three ,  Part Four,  Part Five.

I never really slept that first night - I was too busy contemplating suicide. Funnily enough, I was never actually sea sick again after that. There were to be some really bad days at sea and a lot of time was spent on deck trying to keep the old breakfast down, but I was not to go through that awful feeling of wanting to die anymore. Anyone who has been really bad at sea will know what I am talking about.

Anyway, we are now well on our way to the fishing grounds of Iceland, the sea is a beautiful deep blue (gone is that deep coffee colour of our beloved Humber) and the air is clear and absolutely crisp. My lungs have never felt so good. At every passing hour I start to feel more relaxed and start to enjoy my new life experience as a sea dog! Near the end of the third day we reach Iceland.

I should explain to the uninitiated, the Icelandic Cod War, as it was to be called, came about when the Icelanders, whose only means of earning a living was from fishing, decided that to protect their way of life and the future of their livelihood, they needed to reduce the number of vessels who came from all over the world to fish their waters, which are rich with fish of all varieties - especially bloody big cod!!

Some of these countries used to rape the sea floor of everything going and the Russians were masters at it. Using large factory freezer ships and a flotilla of smaller trawlers they would simply drag anything and everything they could from the deep and when the factory ship was full it would be replaced by another while the previous one returned to Mother Russia to unload.

Enough was enough and the Icelanders decided to implement a 50-mile exclusion zone around the coast of Iceland. What made it worse for the British fishing industry and others was that they didn't implement a parallel zone around their coast but instead took it from point of land to point of land - so in some places the limit was over two hundred miles from land. Hmmm! Clever or what?

Our first night at anchor was a quiet night but what a start to the next day - all Hell let loose. A gunboat was sighted when we had just rendezvoused with a group of fishing trawlers - some British, a few West Germans (as they were then) and the odd French vessel.

Well, the gun boat wasted no time in attacking the pack of trawlers and off we went to work. Our brief was to try and assess which boat they were going to attack. I should explain the gunboat's form of attack; it wasn't a lethal attack on the crew but more of a financial one on the boat's company - the gunboat's method of attack was to attempt to sever the steel lines which pulled the trawl net behind them, and in doing so they would stop the trawler from fishing.

Most trawlers had more than a couple of sets of equipment on board and this was a costly experience. To sever the warps (as they are known) they used a grappling hook with sharpened tangs. This was towed behind on a long steel cable and as the boat went over the stern of the trawler the grapple would simply cut through the warp cables, condemning several thousand pounds worth of trawl net to the deep. continued below..

Exclusive Feature Serial on www.thisisUll.com Part Two - 1973: Super tug to defend fishing fleet continued By John Boldock

Our job was to steam up to the stern (rear) of the likely victim and try to protect the trawler by forcing the gunboat to veer around and force him past the bows (front bit) of the trawler. This proved successful up to a point, but it became impossible when there was more than one gunboat, bit of cat and mouse scenario really - you chase one and the other one darts in as does his business, so you turn around and chase after him and the other sod comes in and does his business. Still, what a start to my sea-going career - one day I am eating my jam sarnies with Mum and a few days later I am looking at the bows of an Icelandic gunboat which is trying to ram us broadside. Whoo-wee!

There were three Icelandic gunboats that I can remember - the big one called the Agieer (pronounced Eye-ear ); the tyre (pronounced tyre - he used to get around a lot, boom boom!); and the baddy of them all, the Odin. These were all former whaling boats and they still had the original crow's nest from which the whale spotter used to operate. The only "modern" accessory was a cannon on the prow of the boat. I always remember after a few weeks of this farce, we requested a rise in our wages as we believed we deserved danger money - but the company at the time said it was classed as a normal towing job! If that was so, why did we have to wear tin hats when on the bridge?

This small copper alloy figure is possibly a representation of Odin, who gave one eye in exchange for wisdom.

In charge of Statesman 1 was the Skipper Charles Noble, later to be awarded the CBE for his duties in Iceland (hey! where's mine?), a nice chap whose hair resembled that guy's in the Fast Show, you know - all combed over from the left. We were chatting one day about his barnet and how he had trouble in hot weather keeping it down. He told us a story about his father who he says went white-haired overnight after his ship was torpedoed during the war. Apparently his father was an engineer and a torpedo came through the side of the ship, skidded along the deck plates and stopped between his dad's legs - but didn't go off. I think my hair would have turned white too, as well as my trousers turning another common colour!

Cap'n Noble was a good and very experience skipper, and although he was a friendly chap, he still commanded the respect of his crew and would take no poo, as they say. The day ended with another boat heading home minus his gear and another successful day out for the Icelandic gunboats. Next: The Great Britain versus Iceland potato fight!

Continued on www.thisisull.com...... Part Three - 1973: Super tug to defend fishing fleet.

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