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An earlier story gave details of the slipway at Pembroke Dock, where various vessels were brought ashore to be overhauled or cleaned and painted before being returned to the water.
This is the story of one particular vessel — a seaplane tender of some 42 feet in length, with twin petrol engines. It was used for several different tasks, involved in the servicing of flying boats at the base. This vessel differed from some others, in that it had a bendix gear system that worked perfectly, but had to be given a 3 — 5 second pause in neutral before going from ahead to astern — or vice versa. Levers in the wheelhouse that operated both throttles and gears controlled both engines.
This bendix drive boat had been up the slipway for a thorough overhaul as well as being cleaned and re-painted, and was now ready to go back into service.
The Senior N.C.O., Warrant Officer Broster, was an excellent coxswain of many years service, had decided to take the tender out himself for the required trials before being put back into service. Realising that he needed at least one crewman, he called for the Corporal coxswain who was in temporary charge of the slipway to accompany him. (I have given the Corporal the fictitious name of Evans to avoid any possible embarrassment)
With the Warrant Officer at the wheel, off they went out of the wet dock, and with the ease born of experience, the W/O took the boat alongside the various craft moored in the area — a bomb scow, a refueller, and a G.P. pinnace, all moored to their respective buoys. The seaplane tender behaved beautifully, and finally the W/O was satisfied with its performance. Stepping back from the wheel, he then told the Corporal to take the boat back to the wet dock, while he stepped up on the fore deck, ready to disembark.
Evans took the wheel and as the boat approached the wet dock, he realised he was going too fast to enter the dock safely, and grabbed both port and starboard levers, pulling them both back from ‘ahead’ to ‘astern’ without given them the vital 3 — 5 second pause in the neutral position. The boat entered the wet dock at around 5 knots, with the W/O standing on the fore-deck, with the mooring rope in his hands, waiting to jump off on to the floating jetty to moor up. Evans was desperately pushing back on the levers, but nothing was happening. The vessel hit the floating jetty hard — so hard that the W/O was thrown through the air before landing on his back on the jetty, which was, as usual, bearing a coat of green slime and oil, which was the fate of anything that floated in the wet dock. As he struggled to regain his footing, the boat kept butting the jetty again and again.
The Warrant Officer was screaming at Evans to ‘go astern’ while the desperate Corporal was screaming back- at the same level — that he was indeed going astern but nothing was happening!
Suddenly, and without warning, the astern gear became engaged, and since the throttles were still wide open, the tender went rushing out of the wet dock backwards, and it was pure luck that sent the vessel through the wet dock entrance without touching the sides but it would have caused damage if Evans had not heard the shouted instructions of the other coxswains in the vicinity to stop the engines — which he did, so that the boat drifted to allow a passing dinghy to take it in tow.
Meanwhile, the Warrant Officer, who under normal conditions was one of the smartest N.C.O.’s in the R.A.F., was being helped by a few of the slipway lads — all trying to hide their differing emotions — at he sight — and smell — of the W/O’s spoiled uniform, which was now covered in the evil oily green slime that invariably coated the surface of the jetty.
We didn’t see W/O Broster until the following day, dressed as immaculately as ever, but we did hear (on the grapevine) that he had devoted at least thirty minutes of his time to telling Corporal Evans of his shortcomings.
The moral of this story must be the importance of just 3 — 5 seconds!!.

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