Mark Pendleton's Memories of Archer Class Vessels

Lieutenant Mark Pendleton, Royal Naval Reserve (Retired) remembers life with the vessels of the Royal Navy Reserve.......

"I was HMS Charger's first RNR Commanding Officer in 1998, she was then attached to Severn Division RNR (HMS Flying Fox), in Bristol, but later reassigned to Liverpool URNU, where I believe she remains today.

HMS Dasher has always been the sea tender of Bristol URNU (to which I was attached as First Lieutenant when it was formed in the late 80s - I believe in 1987, if memory serves). Dasher was commissioned at Bristol in 1988, but this was done while she was commanded by my good friend Lt Cdr John Dinnin RN the first OC of the Bristol,URNU, more recently she became one of the first HM ships to be commanded by a female officer. Charger was commissioned at Bristol in September 1988 - I recall it extremely well as I organised her commissioning ceremony!. Sussex Division had Pursuer ( I took command of her for a brief period in 1988). Sadly the Royal Naval Reserve lost all of it's dedicated vessels in 1994 when the River Class MSFs were reassigned or decommissioned. These vessels were all dear to me having spent so much time and having sailed many thousands of miles in them during my RNR service.

The various RNR Divisions (also known as Sea Training Centres) all manned MCMVs, latterly these were of course River class MSFs, although the Reserves previously manned Ton class sweepers & hunters. The 10 Divisions each provided up to three or occasionaly 4 crews, comprised entirely of reservists. These ships and their crews made up the 10th Minecountermeasures Squadron, with it's base at Rosyth. Each ship had a permanent CO, who was the RN Staff Officer of the Division and the ships were most unusual in the sense that their permanent CO rarely took them to sea, since he would sign command over to RNR Officers for weekend and longer training periods. The divisions also had a Permanent Staff comprised mainly of Senior Ratings who covered the key jobs in the Ships Scheme of Complement, such as Marine Engineering Officer, Petty Officer Minewarfare etc., they also turned over their departments to RNR ratings. The 10th MCM squadron had a staff of regular officers and ratings in the same way as all other squadrons. They would work up crews at every opportunity on weekends and also when each crew undertook it's annual training for a period of two weeks. This continuous training usually took the form of participation in national or NATO exercises or Squadron Exercises. The 10th squadron was declared to NATO and had a role in Deep Armed Team Sweeping (DATS), with the capability to sweep moored mines to some quite extreme depths. The reason why more crews than ships were trained was that in the event of mobilisation the additional crews beyond what was needed for the MSFs would have manned Trawlers taken up from trade. We all had 'War billets' mine for some time for example was in Trawler No 14, I have no idea what that trawler was called, but simply knew that I would be ordered to report on board her at Devonport, in the event of mobilisation.

"We all had 'War billets' mine for some time for example was in Trawler No 14, I have no idea what that trawler was called, but simply knew that I would be ordered to report on board her at Devonport, in the event of mobilisation."

The Archer class boats were acquired to provide the RNR with additional capacity for navigation and seamanship training and they were excellent for this, especially in my view for navigation training for Junior Officers, since they could exercise pilotage without having to tie up another 30 or so people in a 'sweeper, while one Sub Lieutenant under training got experience in driving a vessel where it was intended to go. Another real benefit was that because of their size relatively junior personnel got experience in more responsible jobs - e.g. a Lieutenant could command (one of my friends did so while still a Sub Lieutenant - Phil Hutchinson of Tay Division at Dundee, who commanded Archer frequently), also a junior Sub Lieutenant could be First Lieutenant a POMEM Marine Engineering Officer and so on. I know that I learned more from commanding Charger over the first year that we had her than I had in 2 -3 years in an MSF! Incidentally the Archer class boats were commissioned as HM Ships it was said because that helped the then Conservative Government to meet it's commitments to the numbers of warships for the RN! As they were HM Ships they also had to have permanent COs and again this was the RN Staff Officers who thus achieved the interesting situations of having two commands simultaneously!

The Archer class boats were classified as PBRs (Patrol Boat River), although we ranged in Charger from Southampton to the Clyde! They were somewhat limited by weather however and got pretty uncomfortable in anything like a big sea! They are propelled by twin Rolls Royce Eagle Engines of 740 bhp each. These were the same engine used in the Chieftain tank, where they produced about 1200 bhp. The displacement is 49 tonnes and these engines didn't really produce the speed which the hull was designed for. Range was about 220 miles - we could make Falmouth to Avonmouth without refeulling, but without a huge margin. The design was produced by Watercraft Ltd of Shoreham originally for the Omani Coastguard, sometime in the late 70s, I happened to meet the man who had been responsible for trials of the only boat actually supplied to Oman who told me that their specification called for 40 Knots, but that it would not do the speed with more powerful engines than we had. They therefore did not go ahead and order any more. The design was therefore available more or less 'off the shelf' A total of (I think) 14 were ordered from Watercraft, this was the biggest order for 'warships', placed by the RN since World War II. But Watercraft went broke before they could complete the order. This I believe was a result again of the weight of the design and the fact that having bought 14 sets of engines (of what type I don't know) the yard found they would not allow the boats to meet the specified speed of 22 knots and they had to buy other engines. Eventually the part completed hulls were finished by Vosper Thorneycroft in Southampton in 1987-89. We took over Charger in July 1988, I was one of her trials crew, commanded by the then RN Staff Officer Lt Cdr Dick Just and comprised of a mixture of Permanent Staff and RNR personnel. We spent a week doing trials before heading for Bristol. I have very happy memories of the boats and although we had them in the RNR for a relatively short time, I believe that in Severn Division at least we made good use of the opportunity they presented for training and I'm sure other Divisions did so as well.

"The Archer class boats were classified as PBRs (Patrol Boat River), although we ranged in Charger from Southampton to the Clyde! They were somewhat limited by weather however and got pretty uncomfortable in anything like a big sea!"

I have very happy memories of the boats and although we had them in the RNR for a relatively short time, I believe that in Severn Division at least we made good use of the opportunity they presented for training and I'm sure other Divisions did so as well".

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