The Royal Mail Ship St. Helena of 6,767 grt completed her last two voyages, numbers 242 and 243, between May and July 2016, in the South Atlantic with a departure from Cape Town on 7th May on the five day voyage to the island of St. Helena, followed by a shuttle to Ascension and back, and then via Tenerife to the Thames, where she moored alongside the famous preserved World War II cruiser Belfast from 5th June to 14th June. The last ever voyage started on 14th June from the Thames heading southwards with a call at Tenerife, arriving Ascension on 26th June and St. Helena on 28th June. A shuttle back to Ascension arrived back at St. Helena on 6th July, with a final arrival at Cape Town on 15th July.

The island of St. Helena in the southern Atlantic Ocean lies around 1,200 miles from the south west coast of Africa, and with Ascension Island lying 703 miles to the north west of St. Helena. The island has a sub tropical and mild climate with an average maximum temperature of 30 degrees Centigrade and which rarely falls below an average of ten degrees below the maximum. Annual rainfall is low at 4.5 inches, with English spoken as the official language in the capital Jamestown. The capital lies at the bottom of a steep ravine as the island is mountainous and does not possess a harbour, with all passengers landed at a very small landing stage with stone steps by open boats from the Royal Mail Ship St. Helena. The Georgian capital has pastel coloured houses and the Consulate Hotel, post office and a few offices and shops. The Governor’s house flies the St. Helena flag (proportions 2 by 1), which is the British Blue Ensign with the St. Helena shield, depicting a ship of the British East India Company approaching the rocky shores of the island, and also a yellow St. Helena plover above the shield. The island is the second oldest remaining British Overseas Territory after Bermuda.

HISTORY of ST. HELENA

The island is of volcanic origin and only of fifty square miles in area, and is covered by very rugged mountains rising to 2,700 feet in height. The uninhabited island was discovered by the great Portuguese explorer Joao da Nova in 1502, and the Dutch annexed it in 1633 but left it unoccupied. The island was colonised by the British in 1658 on the orders of Oliver Cromwell, and the British East India Company set up a trading post a year later, with Britain occupying the island ever since except for a few short months in 1673 when the Dutch returned, only to be expelled by the Royal Navy. The island was annexed by the United Kingdom in 1833 with the local population subsisting on maize, potatoes, vegetables and a few livestock. The most famous inhabitant was Napoleon Bonaparte, the French emperor, who was exiled here after his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo on 10th December 1815 until his death on 5th May 1821. Napoleon was buried on the island but his body was exhumed in 1840 and taken back to France to be reburied in L’Hotel des Invalides in Paris. Longwood House, in which he stayed for most of his time as well as at the Briars and the Governor’s mansion of Plantation House built in 1791, is now a museum administered by a French Government official who lives on the forty acre property, which is French territory and is currently being renovated.

The economy of St. Helena is heavily dependent on British financial aid, currently running at £20 million per year. The retention of close links with the United Kingdom has been the main theme of all the general elections held by the 5,100 inhabitants. The general election held in September 1976 advocated and confirmed this, and the island Legislative Council has confirmed this at four year intervals ever since. In 1981, to ameliorate the isolation of St. Helena, the U.K. Government conceded the right of civilian aircraft to land at the military airbase on Ascension and thus for St. Helenians to travel more easily onwards to St. Helena, and later for all island citizens to hold a U.K. passport and to be allowed to work in the U.K. Long range R.A.F. aircraft operate weekly between the U.K. and the Falklands and refuel at Ascension Island, both southbound and northbound, and American military aircraft also fly from Florida to Ascension Island via Antigua and Barbuda. Ascension military airport is thus a vital link in British and American defence strategies, and has around five hundred St. Helenians working on contract at the airbase or in the ten small hotels and boarding houses on the volcanic and desolate island.

Local island employment today is mostly in the agriculture, fishing, service, tourism and construction fields. Fish provides the main export cargo valued at £0.3 million, but the big trade deficit of the island means that up to 1,500 of the population may be working overseas at any one time in the U.K., Ascension Island airbase, and on the Falkland Islands. The annual British Government subsidy to operate R.M.S. St. Helena is £1.5 million, and for that money she makes around six round voyages a year from Cape Town to St. Helena and Ascension Island together with a twelve day outward and return voyage to even more remote Tristan da Cunha.

R.M.S. St. Helena, until 2011, used to alternate her sailings to St. Helena and Ascension from both the U.K. and from Cape Town, but since that date she has kept the islands supplied with provisions and essential services such as visiting doctors and dentists only from Cape Town. St. Helena became one of the U.K. Overseas Territories in 2009 together with Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha, and since that date the three islands have shared the same Governor, Attorney General, Supreme Court and Court of Appeal. An eight man Executive Council and a seventeen man Legislative Council on St. Helena oversee all legal and political problems.

Tristan da Cunha is the most remote inhabited island in the world, lying 2,430 kilometres from St. Helena and 2,800 kilometres from Cape Town. The island was visited by less than one ship per year until the 1950s, with only cruise ships in the inter-war years such as Asturias, Empress of France, Atlantis, Franconia, Carnarvon Castle and Queen of Bermuda calling at very infrequent intervals. The small motor vessel Pequena called at Tristan da Cunha on several occasions between 1947 and 1953 carrying out lobster and crayfish surveys. Tristan has a very ‘cut off’ feeling from the rest of the world with no airport and only a very few ships calling each year, including expedition cruise ships such as Hanseatic, Explorer and the South African Antarctic supply ship S.A. Agulhas, as well as lobster and crayfish fishing vessels that operate from the island for no more than two months each year.

Until 1977, ships of Union Castle Line, particularly the ‘Intermediate Round Africa’ vessels provided the lifeline to St. Helena. However, Union Castle Line terminated passenger sailings between Southampton and Cape Town in 1977, and since then two passenger and cargo vessels have carried out this vital role. The construction of an airport on St. Helena was first proposed in 2002, but was then ‘paused’ until the project was confirmed in 2011 with a start date in 2012 and a completion date four years later in 2016. The completion of the airport is expected to bring an additional 30,000 visitors to the island, and with other economic measures for the production of island produce, is expected to make the island mostly self supporting within a few years, to relieve the financial burden on the British Government.

NORTHLAND PRINCE

The British Government purchased the part passenger and cargo vessel Northland Prince of 3,144 grt in 1977 with accommodation for 93 passengers on four passenger decks and able to carry 2,264 tonnes of cargo to and from the island. She had dimensions of length 331 feet, moulded beam of 48 feet, and loaded draft of eighteen feet, and was powered by a six cylinder Stork Werkspoor diesel engine via a single propeller. She was equipped with two bipod masts and eight small derricks and a larger heavy lift derrick on the foremast to handle her cargo from three hatches and three holds. She had been completed by the Burrard Drydock Company in North Vancouver in 1963 at a cost of £940,000 for the Northland Navigation Company of Vancouver and operated on Vancouver to Alaska services. In 1977, her management contract for the St. Helena service was awarded to Curnow Shipping Company Ltd. of Porthleven Shipyard at Helston in Cornwall and she was renamed St. Helena. After a conversion refit costing £1.5 million she arrived for the first time on the island on 5th October 1978 with a green hull and green funnel.

She was requisitioned by the British Government soon after the start of the Falklands War in February 1982 as the fourth liner to be requisitioned, and arrived at Portsmouth on 24th May 1982 for conversion into a minesweeper support ship. The long suffering St. Helenians were offered passage to and from Cape Town on a small coaster, the former Lady Roslin of 698 grt built at Ardrossan in 1958 and owned by Noble’s Explosives Co. Ltd., but recently sold to Silvermist Properties Ltd. of Chelmsford and renamed Aragonite and given accommodation for a dozen passengers. Curnow Shipping Company Ltd. then chartered the Blue Funnel passenger/cargo liner Centaur as a replacement until the former Northland Prince was available again.

In 1990, after the delivery of R.M.S. St. Helena, the subject of this article, she was renamed St. Helena Island and later Avalon in the same year. She was then sold in 1994 to Indoceanic Maritime Enterprises Ltd. of Port Louis in Mauritius and renamed Indoceanic. She was managed by IKS Ltd. of Port Louis and used on local passenger and cargo services to Reunion and Madagascar until broken up in 1996.

R.M.S. ST. HELENA

An order was placed with the former Hall, Russell yard at Aberdeen, which had been privatised from British Shipbuilders during 1986, in November 1987 for a sophisticated passenger and cargo vessel at a contract price of £19.5 million to accommodate 132 passengers on four decks and carry up to 1,800 tonnes of cargo and 56 TEU containers with dimensions of length 347 feet, moulded beam of 63 feet, and a loaded draft of twenty feet. Unfortunately, during construction the yard ran into financial difficulties and receivers were called in at the end of 1988, with the yard then sold privately to A. & P. Appledore (Aberdeen) Ltd. during 1989. The Royal Mail Ship St. Helena of 6,767 grt was launched on 31st October 1989 by the Duke of York and completed in October 1990 at Aberdeen at a final cost of £32.42 million to maintain a regular service from the United Kingdom and Cape Town to remote St. Helena. She was Yard number 1,000 and the second last vessel to be completed at the former Hall, Russell & Co. Ltd. yard.

She is twin screw and is powered by twin six cylinder Mirrlees diesel engines developing 8,880 bhp to give a service speed of fifteen knots. She has two steel decks in her hull, with a third deck fore and aft of her deep tanks carrying oil, and her two holds and hatches are served by two pedestal cranes of 12 tonnes (24 tonnes when used together) capacity, and two derricks of ten tonnes capacity in front of the bridge. The navigation mast atop the bridge has a lower bipod section with a pole mast carrying the navigation lights above.

The management contract was again confirmed to be with Curnow Shipping Ltd. to begin in October 1990. The maiden voyage was marred on the return leg to Cardiff when she limped into Lisbon on 6th January 1991 on only her port engine, and her 63 passengers were flown home to Heathrow from Lisbon. She was given a new set of two turbo-blowers in July 1993 to ensure that the twin Mirrlees diesels could maintain the service speed of fifteen knots. She had to divert to Brest on 6th November 1999 on the return leg of a St. Helena and Cape Town voyage with a broken starboard crankshaft. The cargo was transhipped at Brest and her extensive engine room repairs were later undertaken at Falmouth. This last incident and non-operation of the vital link with St. Helena made the islanders begin to lobby strongly for the provision of an airport on the island. She suffered a minor engine room fire after sailing from Cardiff on 25th August 2000 en-route to her refuelling stop at Tenerife, but it was quickly put out with no significant damage and no injuries to her engineers.

In July 2001, her five year management contract, renewed in August 2006 and again in August 2011, was transferred to Andrew Weir Shipping (AWS) after serious fraud investigations into Curnow Shipping Ltd. She sailed from Falmouth on 28th August 2001 with passengers and cargo under AWS management after routine repairs in the Falmouth Dockyard. Some of her passengers would have previously viewed the excellent 30 minute video produced by Curnow Shipping Ltd. to showcase the planning, building and commissioning of this unique liner before booking their passage to the South Atlantic. The U.K. departure port then became Portland in 2003 with its grand harbour, and variations on the Jamestown (St. Helena) to Cape Town leg of the service saw occasional calls at Walvis Bay on the African mainland. R.M.S. St. Helena is one of only four ships carrying the status of a Royal Mail Ship in the world and operates the longest supply run of the four, with only a similar French ship running from Tahiti to the French Marquesas and Tuamoto Archipelago in French Polynesia on contract to the French Government having a supply line of a thousand miles or more. The giant Queen Mary 2 of Cunard Line is the only other British R.M.S. vessel.

DESIGN and SPECIFICATION OF R.M.S. ST. HELENA

This unique vessel has four aft passenger decks, denoted as Promenade or Boat Deck and working downwards to ‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘C’ decks. The en-suite two and four berth cabins are all outside cabins with windows or portholes, with the two berth cabins also bookable for single occupancy. ‘C’ deck had budget accommodation for 28 passengers and is used by St. Helenians at subsidised rates on the runs to Cape Town. The passenger capacity was extended in 2012 by the addition of two dozen extra cabins to accommodate 156 passengers and 56 officers and crew, and a useful new gymnasium was added near the funnel.

Promenade Deck

The Master and Navigating Officers accommodation is forward to port and starboard of the central stairwells and lift, with the Officers Lounge on the starboard side aft of their cabins. The Sun Lounge aft has blue decor with matching blue fabric carver armchairs with seating for sixty passengers. The Sun Lounge has large windows at the rear to view the heated open air swimming pool, which has a selection of sun loungers, umbrella clad tables, and deckchairs, wicker chairs and cane furniture. The centrally placed bar is on the forward bulkhead, with the bright and airy children’s playroom entered through double glass fronted doors on the starboard side and forward of this lounge. The promenading spaces to port and starboard are generous, as is the outer open area around the swimming pool.

‘A’ Deck

The forward facing Main Lounge on ‘A’ Deck extends to the full width of the vessel and has comfortable upholstered seating for 66 passengers at twenty tables, as well as a bar on the port side, non-smoking section, and a selection of library books in four glass fronted wooden bookcases, videos and games. The church service on Sundays is held in this Main Lounge. The Lounge is directly opposite the centrally placed lift and is furnished with beautiful red carpets, and red and buff coloured fabric easy armchairs. Breakfast and light lunches can be taken in the Main Lounge or in the Sun Lounge on Promenade Deck. The ship’s hospital and doctor’s office are also located aft on ‘A’ Deck on the port side across from the reading, writing and card room.

‘B’ Deck

Most of the crew accommodation is to port, with fourteen passenger cabins to starboard. The information bureau is placed centrally and forward and directly accessed from the lift opposite. A duty-free well stocked shop on the starboard side sells all manner of South Atlantic souvenirs, and ‘T’ shirts and other clothing, books, videos and other goods. The Purser’s Office, hotel services office and shore telephones are to port.

‘C’ Deck

The Restaurant is located on the starboard side of ‘C’ Deck, with the appeal of a convivial meal much enhanced by the Master and Senior Officers hosting tables at dinner. The Restaurant is very pleasing to those of a maritime nature, with framed paintings and photographs of many British liners that used to voyage to all of the far flung colonies. Union-Castle Line paintings predominate and decorate other parts of the accommodation including on the stairwells and the entrance hall, purser’s office and bureau. The number of passengers varies considerably, and dinner can be served in one or two sittings. This gorgeous room has cream decor with light blue carpets and light blue fabric covered carver chairs at each table. The patterned light cream curtains and the round portholes are opened during the day in the tropics to allow a cooling experience during the evening meal. The fifteen tables have seating for two, four or six passengers, with service to table by British or St. Helenian stewards. The remainder of the crew accommodation, budget cabins, and the galley are located on the port side of ‘C’ deck, and the self service laundry and drying room are pleasant enough.

Superior Cabins

The Promenade Deck has several luxury, family cabins for up to five people or if required one cabin can double as the honeymoon suite. These larger cabins of 32 square metres in area have picture windows (not portholes), double beds which can be folded away to a single bed, and two fold away upper berth units, two wardrobes, two chests of drawers, two armchairs, a good sized dressing table and mirror, as well as large en-suite facilities of toilet, shower and washbasin.

Standard Cabins

‘A’ Deck has the two berth standard cabins of 25 square metres in area with lower and fold away upper berth, a large picture window, one or two wardrobes, one armchair and dressing table with over-lighted mirror. There are also, of course, en-suite facilities of toilet, shower and washbasin in these white painted and pleasant outside cabins.

Economy Cabins

‘A’ Deck also has some useful economy inside cabins of 19 metres in area with upper and lower fold away berths for four people with four wardrobes provided. They also have a large dressing table with over-lighted mirror and en-suite facilities with toilet, shower and washbasin. As with all cruise ships today, fares are calculated on the area of cabins, the more space the higher the fare.

THE VOYAGE EXPERIENCE

This unique voyage experience was travelled by passengers in great comfort as R.M.S. St. Helena was fully stabilised, with the stabilisers mainly used on the rough seas in the Bay of Biscay and to the north west of Cape Town on the five day voyage from Jamestown. She was fully air conditioned and with full telephone, fax and email by satellite communication systems to keep in touch with the outside world. She carried a doctor with well equipped medical facilities to undergo most minor operations. She was classed to the highest classification of Lloyd’s Register under the most rigorous of safety requirements and rules. She has made the longest regularly scheduled liner service in the world for the past 26 years. One of the more important features of the voyage to ship enthusiasts was that an informative visit to the bridge can be arranged at all times of the day, except when entering and leaving port, by simply knocking on the port and starboard bridge wing doors. However, evening entertainment featured no dancing or singing girls, no late night casino, no big bands, but simple home grown entertainment of the pub quiz, deck quoits, and deck cricket variety on the Sun Deck, or even on top of the hatches if cargo was not piled too high on deck.

The twin holds and ‘tween decks carried all manner of general break bulk cargo including island livestock (sheep, goats and Christmas turkeys) and island produce, animal feed, timber and special South African woods, cars and automobile parts, postage stamps in special containers as this is one of the few sources of revenue on St. Helena, paint, and food in reefer containers atop or around the two hatches. Heavier and out-of-gauge project cargo up to 22 tonnes in weight including small wind turbines, small boats and construction material for the new airport could be handled. Parcels up to half a metre in volume were carried along with the mail, any parcels larger than this had to be booked as project or special cargo.

On arrival at Jamestown from Cape Town northbound or southbound from Ascension, R.M.S. St. Helena anchored off in St. James Bay to discharge and receive cargo in barges and small boats. Passengers alighted at the slippery stone steps from small boats, or if infirm, were landed by cage from a barge carrying a crane. Jamestown is a small oasis between towering red, ochre and bronze hills, with high cliffs up to one thousand feet in height as frequent features of the remainder of the coastline of the island. Saint Helenians are descendants of British East India Company workers, Boer prisoners of war, African, Chinese, Malayan, Portuguese and other nationality immigrants. There are 3,800 permanent residents living on the island year round, but up to 1,300 people are forced to work overseas on long contracts of many years in length before returning home at intervals or to retire to their birthplace. Passengers had a few days stopover with plenty of time to stay at the Consulate Hotel or boarding house and walk the island or rent a car.

On arrival at Ascension Island heading northbound, or southbound after only a six hour bunkering stop at Tenerife, R.M.S. St. Helena again had to anchor off as there is no harbour or even a quay at Georgetown, the island capital. The island has never had any permanent residents, but is ‘home’ and a base for the many R.A.F., U.S.A.F., B.B.C. and Cable and Wireless personnel that work at the Wideawake airfield and the sophisticated communication facilities with tall transmitters. The island is very peaceful, tranquil and unspoilt with yellow sand beaches, 44 dormant volcanic peaks and craters rising to 2,818 feet in height, a few green bushes and scraps of vegetation in the predominantly barren and volcanic landscape, good sports fishing, and bird and marine life. The working personnel of the island have plenty of outdoor experiences to occupy their leisure time with wildlife consisting of rabbits, wild goats, sooty terns and partridges, as well as green turtles that lay their eggs on the island from December to May. R.A.F. flights could be booked to coincide with the arrival of R.M.S. St. Helena via AWS Management with an allocation of ten civilian seats on scheduled R.A.F. charter flights between Brize Norton airfield and Wideawake airfield. There are currently around eight R.A.F. charter flights per month. Passengers could go ashore during the one day stopover of the mailship, and stay at a bed and breakfast overnight to see the military airport, communications transmitters and the hinterland of the island before returning to the ship.

NEW AIRPORT CONSTRUCTION

A site on Prosperous Bay Plain on the east side of the island between Prosperous Bay and Dry Gut Bay at a height of 300 metres was selected for the new airport. A concrete runway of length 1,850 metres was built parallel to the east coast of the island, together with a taxiway and apron, and an airport terminal building of 3,500 square metres, and bulk diesel fuel and aviation fuel tanks, and a nine mile airport access road from Rupert’s Bay near Jamestown. The civil engineering work had been largely completed by mid 2015. Aircraft such as the Airbus A319 and Boeing 737 and Boeing 757 long haul aircraft are envisaged to be used, with the first scheduled route being from Johannesburg in May 2016, followed by flights to and from Cape Town and London. Two hour connection flights from Wideawake airfield on Ascension Island also began immediately. Calibration flights for the approaches to the airfield over the sea had already taken place by the end of 2015, and a helicopter from the Royal Navy frigate Lancaster had also landed. A new wharf was built at Rupert’s Bay for the transport of heavy bulk material and cement to the construction site. Around four to six cruise ships call at the island per year and anchor offshore including Queen Victoria of Cunard Line on 27th April 2016, and it is hoped that this wharf will be used for cruise ship arrivals in the future.

POSTSCRIPT

One thing is certain, life will never be the same again on St. Helena, an island only ten miles long, after the opening of the new airport. The airport is not too far from Longwood House, the home of Napoleon Bonaparte during his long exile on St. Helena. A detachment of the British Army was stationed on St. Helena at this time to guard him, and a Royal Navy garrison was stationed on Ascension Island at this time as further insurance against his escape, to make certain that Napoleon did not repeat his return to France from the island of Elba off Piombino in Italy in 1815, after his abdication a year before his imprisonment there. The final defeat at Waterloo in 1815 and his long voyage and sojourn to a lonely existence on St. Helena was his ultimate fate.

R.M.S. St. Helena has had a long and useful career of 26 years in helping the St. Helenians move forward to a new and better chapter in their long history. While her future is uncertain, a unique combination vessel such as herself will struggle to find a buyer for further trading, as she was specially designed to serve the needs of St. Helena. She could not be used as a supply ship for Tristan da Cunha, as that is not a practical proposition, and she may be sold for scrapping. She had an iconic buff funnel with a thin black top featuring a blue disc bearing a rampant yellow and black lion or beast, which held a British royal crown.