British warship gets "whale of welcome" in Sydney
Date: 16-Oct-02
Country: AUSTRALIA
Royal Navy spokesman Lieutenant Commander Simon Dalziel said a Southern Right whale and her calf played around the HMS Nottingham as she was towed stern first through the famous Sydney Heads at the entrance of the harbour.
"I'm told by the experts that it was a Southern Right whale, in fact there were two," Dalziel told Reuters. "It was a whale of a welcome."
The newly refitted 125 metre (412 ft) warship is expected to be raised on to a semi-submersible heavy-lift ship later this month for the trip back to Britain.
The Nottingham struck well-charted rocks off Lord Howe island on July 7 in stormy weather, smashing a hole in her hull and flooding five forward compartments, including her forward engine room and a Sea Dart missile store.
She languished 100 metres (yards) off the island, 780 km (480 miles) northeast of Sydney, for a month and then spent another eight weeks in Newcastle, a port city north of Sydney, being emptied of her deadly arsenal.
The Nottingham was towed stern first down the coast to Sydney and into the harbour to lessen the pressure on her damaged bow.
Unlike in Newcastle, when crowds of onlookers lined the harbour foreshores for a view, only a few curious sightseers woke up to take in the Nottingham's dawn arrival in Sydney.
The $400 million Type 42 air defence destroyer was tied up alongside an Australian navy refuelling jetty in the middle of the harbour, her bow slightly lower in the water than her stern but otherwise showing no obvious signs of damage.
The Royal Navy has contracted heavy-lift specialists Dockwise to carry the Nottingham back to Britain on the Swan, a semi-submersible vessel capable of carrying up to 25,000 tonnes on her 126.8 metre (416 ft) by 31.6 metre (103 ft 8 in) deck.
Navy officials say inspections of the hull while the Nottingham lay in Newcastle had proved surprisingly optimistic, increasing the likelihood of the ship being salvaged.
It had been feared that the warship might have to be scrapped, or consigned to navy target practice.
