JANET HELEN LO93

 

From the West Wales Guardian

Official No: 187695   Port and Year:   London, 1958                                                             

Description: Steel side trawler; single screw, motor. 

Crew:  7 men

Built: 1957, by Fairmile Construction Co., Berwick on Tweed.  (Yard no. 449)

Tonnage: 73  grt  26 net.

Length / breadth / depth (feet): - / - / -

Engine:  Lister Blackstone EVSM4; 216 hp. = 10.5  kts.

Owners:

 

1958: Booth & Croft Ltd., London SW1

Managers: Norrard Trawlers, Docks, Milford.

 

Landed at Milford:  28 Jan - 28 Dec 1958

Skippers: Wally King.

Notes: 10 Dec 1959: 30 miles SE of Flamborough Head, sprang a leak in the engine room during a gale. The crew of five (skipper Ernest Neal) took to the inflatable liferaft,  and were picked up by WAR DUKE GY1037.  The skipper and mate went back aboard and attached a tow rope. While under tow at 2 kts, a heavy sea hit her, and she went down 14 miles from Spurn Point.

[Information supplied via "Ships Nostalgia" website.]

 Accidents and Incidents

From the West Wales Guardian of Friday 31st January 1958:

 

    'LITTLE BEAUTY'

Smallest Steel Trawler Joins Milford Fleet

 

    Britain's smallest all steel trawler, compact, well planned and only 73 feet overall, arrived at Milford haven on Tuesday night to join the fishing fleet at the port.  She is the £40,000 motor vessel Janet Helen, built to the order of Booth and Croft, Ltd., of London, by the Fairmile Construction Company, Berwick-on-Tweed.

    She was brought round from the Berwick yard and will probably sail on her first fishing voyage from Milford on Saturday.

    The Janet Helen carries a crew of seven and will fish the drifter trawler grounds.  She is being managed at Milford by a leading drifter trawler company, Norrard Trawlers, Ltd.

AN ASSET TO MILFORD

    The new vessel is likely to prove an asset to the Milford fleet and it is believed that more orders for the same type may follow.

    Equipped and rigged in conventional style for fishing from both port and starboard, the Janet Helen has a trawl winch belt driven from the main engine and on a miniature scale most of the equipment of a larger trawler.  On her trials she attained a speed of 10.42 knots over the measured mile.

    Janet Helen's hull is basically similar to a design by the Frenchman, M. Giraud.  The forward sections have slightly more flare to give a roomy working platform.

 

ENGINES CONTROLLED FROM BRIDGE

    In the wheelhouse Skipper Smith, besides having Decca Navigator, Kelvin Hughes Echo Sounder and a Woodson W/T, R/T and D/F set has full control of the engines to hand, with a panel showing oil pressures and engine revolutions.

    Accommodation below decks is for four crew in a main cabin, with cabins opening off for the Skipper, Mate and engineer.

    Lifesaving equipment consists of a 14ft. ship's boat carried in the stern and an R.F.D. inflatable life-raft stowed in the deckhouse.

    To sum up, in the words of a Milford skipper who inspected the new ship on Wednesday, "She is a little beauty."

 

AN EXPERIMENT

    Mr, F. W. Ingram, D.S.M., Managing Director of Norrard Trawlers, Ltd., told the "Guardian" on Thursday:—

        "The Janet Helen is in the nature of an experiment for which we have high hopes.  She has already excited a lot of interest here and if she does well

    she may be followed by others of her type.  She will fish with our drifter trawler fleet and will be in charge of Skipper Wally King and a local crew.

 

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From the West Wales Guardian of Friday 26th September 1958:

 

"Sputnik" Averaged £618 a Trip

 

    The 73ft. trawler "Janet Helen" which was transferred from Milford Haven to Swansea after completing 15 trips landed a total weight of fish at Milford of 14,233st. of which 411 st. remained unsold.  The amount of money including subsidy, which resulted from the sale of this fish was £9,270 which works out at an average of £618 per trip.  The average stonage per trip was 950 approximately.  During the whole of the time at Milford "The Sputnik's" fuel bill amounted to £800 and ice bill to £177.

 

 

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