A boaty blog

A weekend or two ago, I joined my friend Lavinia to explore HMS Belfast, a former gunship that is now a floating navy museum on the Thames. It was a grey day, so this is a better photo than mine:


The ship is essentialy six floors of action:


We started on the dining level, where some old admirals where having a buffet lunch. The smell of their sandwiches mingled with the musty rustiness of the rest of the ship. The combination of steel, old water and mayonnaise kept us company as we checked out the galley, dentist's room (ick), hospital, radio room and map halls.

From there we went downstairs into the bowels of the ship. It was lots of fun walking on gangways above pipes and dials and those sort of techy things that make 12,000 tons of steel move:




The ship is enormous - 187m long, with steel walls 12cms thick, so no wonder it could carry two aircraft and 750 men, scrambling all over the place to fire things at Germans in the North Sea.

I think we walked a few kilometres in all the up-ing and down-ing we did seeing how it all worked together:


I'm usually a bit of a pacifist. However, I couldn't help but admire the sheer killing power of the ammunition and torpedo rooms:


The best bit was when I'd realise just how far below the surface we were. It freaked me out quite a bit, but was also kind of a thrill. I'm not really into boats, but I'm glad I did this one.