I suppose it's because I have so much time on my hands these days, that all these memories come flooding back to me.

We had just left the UK and were heading out for a two year trip in the Persian Gulf so moral was not all that high as we had just said goodbye to all our loved ones and this was only our second day away. We were in the Bay of Biscay when we received a bad weather forecast ahead; in fact it was a hurricane warning. Our skipper never took the easy option of changing our course to sail around it, saying that we were the Royal Navy, and therefore we could take it - a decision he was soon going to regret and it was one of the many bad decisions to come.

I felt the ship starting to pitch and roll when I was showing the movie in the dinning hall, as that was one of my jobs on board this frigate, along with my watch keeping duties on all the outside machinery in the engineering department. As it started to heave and roll I noticed a few of the lads leaving the dining hall to go down to their mess. This alone did not surprise me, as we did have quite a few juniors¹ who had not yet found their sea legs. But then it got so bad that I had to stop the movie as the projector was moving around too much and I did not want to break it as that was our only entertainment for the whole trip plus the fact that the lenses alone were irreplaceable.

So there was a lot of moaning and grumbling from the lads when I asked for the light to be switched back on so that I could stow the film gear away and they all left. It was nine thirty in the evening (21.30hrs) and I was due on duty again for the middle watch - midnight till four in the morning (00.00-4am) - so I decided to go and get my head down for an hour before going on watch. As I made my way down to the mess I could feel the ship really start to roll so I went up top to the upper deck to have a look. The tanoi message had just been announced to close down the ship to condition Zulu². When I tried to open the door to the upper deck it felt as if someone was trying to stop me from the other side, but then with one big push it flew open, taking me with it. What I saw then really scared me; the sky seemed low, so low I felt as if I could reach out and touch it. The wind howled round me and the mixture of sea spray and fresh rain water was trying to confuse my taste buds as the water ran from my face. The air pressure was so high it made my ears pop as I was thrown outside while clinging on to the door, but my hand slipped free and I was thrown to the deck as it came up to meet me.

After what seemed like ages to me at the time, yet was only a few seconds, I managed to get back on my feet and tried to catch that door as it swung back and forth banging the bulkhead behind it. Eventually I managed to grab one of the clips and kept my balance long enough to jump over the dwarf bulkhead and get back inside. I immediately began to close all eight clips as tightly as I could, as I knew that the wind was going to get stronger. I never did get any sleep before going on watch that night. The sound of the ship creaking and groaning as it pitched and rolled in that heavy sea put fear into my mind because I lay there in my bunk which was a top one and was about seven feet above the floor. Then it was time to go watch; I even had difficulty putting on my overalls as the ship was pitching so badly. I arrived at the MCR³ to find everyone worried and was told by the chief of the watch to go straight down to the Tiller Flat⁴ to check the hydraulic fluid levels.

Now our ship was a small frigate, but had one large propeller between two rudders, which made for faster manoeuvres at sea, but it also meant that we had to climb into the protective cage and somehow dodge these rudder arms as the ship was being steered. The cage was there to protect the steering gear from any falling spare machinery parts which were stored in special cases and tied in with metal clamps. I arrived at the cage door and opened it ready to enter when the chance arose, I could hear the propeller whistle round in the wind as it left the sea through the thin skin of the ship. Then it would crash back into the sea with such a shudder and deafening noise that scared the wits out of me, then the rudder arms would shake as the rudders re-entered the sea and then move violently as the helmsman tried to steer the ship for mid ships.

Just before I entered the cage a massive spare chuck for the metal lath broke lose from its hosing box and came crashing into the cage and then slid across the deck as the ship heaved once more. I took my chance and dived in and tried to read the hydraulic levels, but it was no use as I couldn't get a true reading. I then found myself trapped inside the steering gear cage as the helmsman battled with the heavy seas and sent the rudder arms swinging in both directions. I tried to hang on to the cage to stop slipping into the arms.

Now the tiller flat is not a ventilated area and the smell of the oil and rank air along with the violent pitching of the ship, bearing in mind that it is right above the propeller, made me sick! This made my position even worse as I was now trying to keep away from the arms but my feet were sliding in the oil and my own vomit.

It took around forty minutes before I had the chance to exit the cage, when the ships stern was high out of the water, I took the chance and crawled clear, my hands were by now all cut and bleeding from gripping the cage while trying to hang on.

Although my main problem was over, I now had to try and dodge all the other spare engineering parts that had broken free from their housing and were rolling around on the deck. Eventually I made it to the door and was ever so pleased to clip it back up from the opposite side.

I made my way back to MCR, only to find that they had been looking for me to fill up the only generator we had running with fuel, so I never got the chance to have my nice cup of hot cocoa along with the rest of the watch. We pulled into Gibraltar some two days later, where we had planned to take on fuel and supplies and be away in two days. Instead we were there for two weeks making repairs and replacing all our lost equipment which even included our helicopter which had been smashed to bits in its hanger, along with all our boats when the sea ripped through the whole of our upper structure. We also lost all our handrails and some radar equipment which we would have considered safe being some forty feet above sea level. Below decks was just as bad as we had to scrub all the boot marks from our feet marks where we had been walking on the bulkheads⁵ during the storm.

I have never forgotten that night! Its memory is etched in my mind like a bad dream.

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