HMS Hydra (A144) - 1970s - and Five Years Away From The UK

and Five Years Away From The UK

Surveying a route ten miles (16 km) wide down the 180-mile (290 km) length of the Malacca Strait was a mammoth task. Breaks for maintenance, fuel and recreation were taken at Singapore, with a longer interruption from mid-June to mid-October 1970 for refit by Sembawang Shipyard. The ship visited Port Swettenham before resuming surveys in the Malacca Strait. However, she was detached after a fortnight to support the British task force sent from Singapore to relieve the area of East Pakistan stricken by a severe cyclone and tidal wave. The ship was used in a survey role, finding and marking channels for small craft to take in food and supplies. She later resumed the Malacca Strait survey and spent Christmas 1970 at Singapore. During her year in the Malacca Strait, 63 shoal soundings were reported and promulgated by Notice to Mariners.

The surveys of the Malacca Strait were concluded in March 1971 and she then spent three weeks in Hong Kong charting waters to the south of Lantao. On 6 April 1971, HMS Hydra sailed from Hong Kong to return to the UK, via the Panama Canal. She called at Yokosuka, Long Beach, Acapulco and Bridgetown, Barbados, making gravity, magnetics and bathymetric observations on passage and investigating several shoals. The summer and autumn of 1971 were spent at Chatham, with a refit and trials.

Recommissioned at Chatham on 11 October 1971, she sailed on 30 November 1971 via the Cape of Good Hope, to return to the Far East from where she was not to return for five years, carrying out extensive surveys in the south Pacific. She left Simonstown on 3 January 1972 and called at Mauritius before carrying out a short investigation around the Aldabra Islands. After a visit to Mombasa to calibrate the ship's gravimeter, the first half of February was spent in the Seychelles where the ship's helicopter helped with the erection of Hi-Fix sites.

She was detached from surveying, and ordered to return to the Mauritius area, arriving off Rodrigues Island, one of the Mascarene Islands, on 26 February to assist in disaster relief. She left the area and arrived Singapore on 13 March, thus completing a circumnavigation of the globe in one year. After a short period of maintenance, she set sail for her 1972 survey area in the Solomon Islands. This survey, from 17 April to 18 August, covered the Bougainville Strait, last surveyed in 1884. Visits were paid to Honiara (Guadalcanal Island), Ghizo Island and Kieta (Bougainville Island). A three-week visit to Brisbane was brought forward in order to have two defective main engines replaced by two flown out from the United Kingdom. The ship arrived in Hong Kong at the end of August, where she spent three months, some time being spent on surveys in local waters. She sailed from Hong Kong on 28 October and arrived in Singapore for her annual refit which began on 13 November; the most important work was the installation of the SRN9 satellite navigation system.

The refit was completed on 13 January and she sailed 12 February 1973 to resume surveys in the Solomon Islands, brief visits being paid to Jakarta and Thursday Island during the 4,000-mile (6,400 km) passage to Honiara. Surveys of Bougainville Strait and New Georgia Sound were completed. A three-week visit was paid to Brisbane in May, for maintenance, and while on passage both ways a reconnaissance was made of Indispensable Reef. For the next thirteen weeks, almost without a break, surveys were undertaken along the north coasts of Choiseul and Santa Isabel Islands and of Manning Strait. A Solomon Islands 45c postage stamp was issued in January 1981, recording the ship's surveying from April 1972 to September 1973.

Preparations for future surveys were carried out around Fiji in late 1973 and a visit was made to Sydney on passage back to Singapore, where she arrived on 26 October for refit; the ship's company lived ashore in the ANZUK barracks. No time was lost owing to bad weather or breakdown during a year in which the ship had steamed over 48,000 miles (77,000 km). The two survey boats had steamed an additional 10,000 miles (16,000 km) during the surveys of the Solomon Islands.

With the refit completed in January 1974, her next surveys were around the Maldives, during which time she visited Gan. She made the long passage east, via Singapore, and arrived at her new base of Suva, in the Fiji Islands, on 12 April. Surveys were carried out off northern Viti Levu, with a break in June/July for maintenance in Brisbane. Back off Viti Levu in July, these surveys were completed by August. The next month, work began on modern surveys off northern Vanua Levu and of Yandua Island. Before departing Fijian waters on 21 October, HMS Hydra took part in celebrations to mark the centenary of the cession of the islands to Queen Victoria, with Prince Charles embarked for part of the time. Survey was made of Epi Island, and other areas, of the New Hebrides on passage for Auckland, New Zealand, where the ship arrived on 28 November for maintenance and leave.

Surveys off Vanua Levu were resumed in January 1975, though work was punctuated with excursions to the Koro Sea for hurricane assistance and search and rescue work. The ship was absent from surveys in the Fiji area in March for a series of vigia investigations in the south-western Pacific. Surveys were broken off at the end of April and, on 2 May, the ship sailed Suva for Singapore, where she arrived on 22 May for a ten-week refit.

HMS Hydra then sailed for the Indian Ocean and was surveying the waters around the Seychelles from September to November. She then had a maintenance period in Mombasa, returning to survey off Mahé. Christmas 1975 was spent in Port Victoria and the ship sailed the Seychelles on 29 December for the Persian Gulf.

The main survey was on the traffic separation routes about 60 miles (97 km) from the eastern end of the Persian Gulf, around the Tunb Islands off Iran. The surveys began with a visit to Bandar Abbas and Iranian naval personnel were attached to the ship for the duration. The ship remained in the area until the end of April, working mostly out of Bandar Abbas, but visits were paid to Karachi (for maintenance), Masirah and Dubai. Passage through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean was followed by a two-week maintenance period in Malta in late May 1976. Surveys then began in the western Mediterranean, until the middle of September, with visits to Palermo, Malta and Gibraltar. She sailed the Rock on 14 September for Portsmouth, her first sighting of the UK in five years. She then underwent a refit at Vosper Thornycroft in Southampton, when her living accommodation was extensively modernised; boat surveys of Portsmouth harbour, and other south coast harbours, were carried out during the refit. No chart of Chichester harbour had previously existed, and parts of the Poole area had not been surveyed since 1878.

HMS Hydra completed refit in August 1977 and was operational again on 26 September. She sailed 24 October for Iran, calling briefly at Gibraltar and Malta. She arrived at Bandar Abbas, in company with HMS Hecate, on 23 November and surveys then began along the Iranian coast in the Gulf of Oman. Christmas 1977 was spent in Bahrain. She was employed on surveys in the Persian Gulf, off Iran, for much of 1978 and 1979.

On 1 January 1979, as one of four Royal Navy survey ships forming the Persian Gulf Surveying Squadron (HMS Herald, HMS Fawn and HMS Fox), HMS Hydra was at anchor in Char Bahar bay on the south-east coast of Iran. Later in the month, the ship was at Bombay for maintenance, resuming surveys off Iran on 4 February. The surveys were almost complete when the ship was ordered to Bandar Abbas assist with the evacuation of western nationals during the Iranian revolution. While awaiting a decision as to their future employment, the ships of the squadron were engaged in investigations of the many shoals in the centre of the Persian Gulf. The ship visited Muscat and then the decision was made to withdraw the squadron, so passage was set for the UK, with visits to Haifa, Catania and Gibraltar, before arriving in Portsmouth on 19 April. She sailed on 9 May for shoal investigations in Scottish waters and spent July and August in Southampton for docking and repairs at Vosper. The autumn of 1979 was spent off the west coast of Scotland, starting a detailed survey of the Western Approaches to the North Channel, an area where a large number of U-boats were sunk in 1946 after their surrender.