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 Dominic Arkwright
The听Royal Navy destroyer, HMS Manchester has been involved in counter-drug operations - liaising with America听to try to combat the multi-billion dollar cocaine industry.听
Deployment in the Caribbean is a plum tour. No doubt about that. But it seems to consist of long periods of boredom, interspersed with short ones of excitement. And, of course, plenty of fine shore leave, in for example, Key West, Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands
Most of the work is humdrum 鈥 training, diplomacy, charity and relief work, pressing flesh in British Dependencies. But what they really want to do on HMS Manchester is catch drug-runners. And when that happens the ship comes alive.
鈥淚鈥檓 an excitable person,鈥 admits Liz Trotter, 鈥渂ut it鈥檚 great. Wow, wow, wow!鈥
Not everyone is this excitable, but a buzz goes through the ship when the chase is on. The 鈥渙llies鈥 kick in 鈥 two twenty-five thousand horsepower turbo engines that get the ship moving at 30 knots. The ship rattles, the panels shake, but it鈥檚 still not fast enough to catch the prey 鈥 a so-called 鈥済o-fast鈥 which knows it鈥檚 been spotted.
A 鈥済o-fast鈥 is purpose-built for smuggling. Made of fibreglass, a hold which may contain a ton of cocaine and enough fuel to get from Colombia to Jamaica or the Dominican Republic and back. It鈥檚 powered by between two and four 200 horsepower outboard motors and can travel at more than 40 knots. It has a crew of three or four people and it runs at night, lying low by day under a blue tarpaulin.
HMS Manchester will not catch one - even with the 鈥渙llies鈥. So it unleashes the helicopter.
鈥淎ction Lynx. Action Lynx, 鈥 comes the pipe. And when the chopper goes up in anger, the crew know something鈥檚 up. The helicopter will hover low, just in front of the 鈥済o-fast鈥, driving spray into the faces of the crew, disorientating, harassing, forcing the boat to change course. It鈥檚 trying to make life miserable for the crew.
Twice, a 鈥済o-fast鈥 dumped drugs into the sea and made it back to Colombian territorial waters. The drugs were never recovered. Once, only, in four and a half months were drugs seized. 1050 kilograms of pure cocaine. Forty-two bales the size of airline flight bags, wrapped in Hessian and marked 鈥淧roduce of Colombia.鈥 You couldn鈥檛 make it up.
鈥淓ven the Captain smiled,鈥 says chef Dave Trotter. 鈥淢orale was low before that. We were on a downer. But when this happened the whole mood changed.鈥
It鈥檚 not real war, but it鈥檚 not a bad trip if you鈥檝e GOT to be away from home for four and a half months.
All photographs - 漏 Crown Copyright, image from www.photos.mod.uk
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