Durban Naval Competitions 1920

[Nobody]

   Monday January 12^th, afternoon
The first official naval race in the history of Nverse began with some delays. Not only had the inspection of the Kaiser Barbarossa taken longer than expected, but it also took some time to start the race without pre-starts.
   Finally the Dreadnoughts were underway. The Orange Benguela Bay and Kaap Delgado with their fast reacting turbo-electric-drive-system managed the best starts and quickly pulled away from the 4 other ships while the Columbian Antonio Jose de Sucre already started to fall behind.
   In the middle SMS Kaiser Barbarossa and Mayta Capac were racing bow to bow just behind the Kaap Agulhas. It took the German smoke belching battle-wagon nearly 2 minutes to pull ahead of the South-American contestant and after 3 minutes it became obvious that she was faster than the third Orange entry. However, it took the good looking German ship 6 minutes before it could overtake the Kaap Agulhas. By this time her speed had also been matched by the Mayta Capac and was only saved from being overtaken again, by the end of the race.

The official results:

Place	Ship	Time [sec]			Rank	Ship	Speed [kn]
1	Benguela Bay	382,3			1	Benguela Bay	24,36
2	Kaap Delgado	387,6			2	Kaap Delgado	24,03
3	SMS Kaiser Barbarossa	462,9			3	SMS Kaiser Barbarossa	22,74
4	Kaap Agulhas	466,4			4	Mayta Capac	22,09
5	Mayta Capac	474,8			5	Kaap Agulhas	21,82
6	Antonio Jose de Sucre	747			6	Antonio Jose de Sucre	13,39

[Nobody]

   Tuesday January 13^th
The battlecruiser race starts with a surprise as only the Arktur and cadet ship Gorch Fock manage to start without much delay, while all other ships seem to take their time and didn't move much for the first ten seconds at all. The reason might have been the immediate disqualification for false starting, introduced after the trouble with repositioning the ships the day before.
   While the Arktur seem to have a lead at first the Gorch Fock proved that her diesel-electric drive, which offered full power over the full speed range, was much more dynamic and got the leading position after just 15 seconds. Shortly after that the Betelgeuze left the group of of the five other contestants behind and started to chase after the two leading ships.
   That group was first lead by Napoleon the Great but was overtaken by SMS Moltke after 35 and Alecto after 40 seconds. SMS Moltke on the other hand couldn't keep her forth overall place either and was caught by Alecto after ~50 seconds as well.
   For the next three and a half minute the crowed watched as the De Ruyter slowly closed the gap to Napoleon the Great and than passed by at minute 4.5. At the same time the Orange Battlecruisers had catched up to the German cadet ship, and slipped ahead of it less than a quarter mile (Arktur) and a few seconds (Betelgeuze) before the finish line.
   

Place	Shipname	Time [sec]			Rank	Ship	Speed [kn]
1	Arktur	319.5			1	Alecto	30
2	Betelgeuze	322			2	Betelgeuze	29.82
3	Gorch Fock	322.7			3	SMS Moltke	28.84
4	Alecto	332.4			4	Arktur	28.68
5	SMS Moltke	349.9			5	De Ruyter	28.37
6	De Ruyter	372.3			6	Montmedie	27.54
7	Napoleon the Great	375.7			7	Napoleon the Great	27.25
8	Montmedie	395.7			8	Gorch Fock	25.79

[Nobody]

   Wednesday January 14^th
The high number of vessels in the destroyer and torpedoboat class made it necessary to split the contestants in two groups: light destroyers and torpedoboats under 1000 tons and heavy destroyers over 1000 tons. There also seemed to have been problems with some of the ships. It was said that the referees decided to put extra weights with a total mass of 293 tons on five of the ships.
   The seven light ships raced first. Less than two minutes into the race it became obvious that one of the export torpedo-boats entered by a private yard was limping behind. Rumors say that its crew had gone overboard while rising the boiler pressure and blown some pipes. Anyway, from the starting line the Gran Columbian TB-75 Johi took the lead. Ahead of the Orange Korvette 66, chased and soon overtaken by the Ottoman MK-1. After a minute Johi had fallen back to forth place behind MK-1, Orange Export #25 and #22, but still ahead of K-66, the now struggling OE-24 and its sister-ship, the TB-70 Jatibonico.
   90 seconds into the race all ship were near they maximum speed, and started to switch places accordingly. And the Result was the following:

Place	Ship	Time [sec]			Rank	Ship	Speed [kn]
1	19TB1 OE-25	238,6			1	19TB1 OE-25	34,09
2	MK-1	248,1			2	MK-1	31,81
3	19TB1 OE-22	262,8			3	19TB1 OE-22	30,19
4	K-66	274,1			4	TB-70 Jatibonico	30,02
5	TB-70 Jatibonico	274,2			5	K-66	29,41
6	TB-75 Johi	275,5			6	TB-75 Johi	28,68
7	19TB1 OE-24	301,4			7	19TB1 OE-24	26,46

[maddox]

Tuesday january 13, almost midnight.  Leopard 8 is brightly lit, ship and harbor cranes are unloading supplies.
A spigot is spewing clear water in the waters.
The crew is making last minute adjustments to about anything they can.

Leopard 9 on the other hand is quiet. Just the normal watch is seen.

This difference draws in the attention of the Referees.

First the guards won't allow the referees to enter the quay around the ship, and this delay is used well to get the captain and Exec up to speed.

Messieurs, welcome to our Petite Guy, why this late night visit?
It was brought to our attention that the activity here seems to be focussed on changing the ships weight, so it can do the race in a non regulated condition.

the captain smiles ,and a chuckle escapes the exec's troath

Actualy sirs, all this activity is to make sure Ma Belle is in regulation condition before starting the race.

Oh, how do you explain the fact that your plimsoll mark is riding 40 cm higher than your sisterships?

But sirs, Néne Noir is only a halfsister ship. And as you can see, most of our supplies are on the quay, ready to be reloaded after the spring cleaning. We're here in high summer, so I wanted to make use of that fact.
Is there anything in the Durban naval competitions rules not allowing a clean ship?
( one of the more understanding sailors on the bridge gets word out to repaint the plimsoll mark 20cm/8" lower than it is now)

No, no, that is true, but alas, you can see our concern. If your ship can't be reloaded in time, you'll have to forfait.
But, you said NéNe Noir is a halfsister of this ship. I didn't have any ship on the list with that name. If you're talking about Leopard 9, she looks exactly the same. What would the differences be? Both are build, and rebuild according to the French plans.

Ah, mon ami Arbitre, you see,my Petite Guy, Small Willhelmina, is build in the Feyenoord shipyards, nearby Rotterdam, the Netherlands.  You know the Dutch, they'll do anything for that tenth of a knot faster. So, they took the French plans, and substituted the normal strength steel girders and plates, and substituted those for high strength steel, but thinner, so the specified strength was achieved. That in itself achieved 75 tons less of weight. The engines, the same story.

The Maorians on the other hand, want strength and resilience in their ships. So, poor Néne Noir ended up with thicker hull plating, heavier rivetting and a tad less engine power.
If you want a Leopard that is build according the French plans without any deviation, you'll have to look at one of the UNK build ships. Alas, those ain't here.

I see, Still, if Leopard 8 isn't loaded before 7 am, I'll have her balasted untill she is loaded according the specifications.

8 hours later

Captain, your ship isn't loaded as I specified. The plimsoll mark shows that she should, the whole ship is leaning forward. Just standing on the quay, you can see the bow is overloaded.  And no, reshuffling supplies won't do, as that would get the bow riding higher. I expected this. You'll have to take enough ballast to get the ship riding the water as she should. 3 of my men will see to it.  This calibrated inclinometer will show when the ballasting operation is ready. I took the messurment myself, on the same spot on Leopard 9.  Failing to coörperate will void your participation. And, complaints will result in more drastic meassures. I suggest you start right away.

Mes oui Arbitre. Right away.



Tons of led ingots are passed in human converybelts, and the stern is setting.

In the mean time, the 3 assistent referees are cuddled, probed, a few mediocre attempts to bribery are shrugged off.

Finaly, the inclinometer shows that Leopard 8, Little Wilhelmina is level with her "uprepared" sistership.

But....

[Nobody]

   Destroyers, part II
This category had the potential to become the most exciting one. Not only because there were 17 ships in it, making it the largest group, but also because of the differences between the individual contestants, ranging from the 1130 ton French Petite Guy to the 1999 ton oceangoing Orange Raider Z-1.
   It was a ship from the self proclaimed Orange archenemy, Italy, the DDL-03 which first took the lead, but the French Leopard 8 'Petite Guy' emerged from a group of ships closely behind and overtook the Italian lead-ship after 55 seconds. At the other end of the scale the huge - for a destroyer at least - Orange Z-1, which clearly had not been build for speed or such races, had already fallen behind after a mere 20 seconds when the Brandenburger T-155 pulled away from her.
   There was a lot happening in the early race, two much to even notice between so many ships. And it wasn't until 90 seconds into the race when all, but the Orange Z-1, were near their top speed that the field began to disperse. Ships were still fighting for places though, and when the official results were sorted out and finally published the next day, some captains were in for a surprise.

Place	Ship	Time [sec]			Rank	Ship	Maximum Speed [kn]
1	Leopard 8 ,,Petite Guy"	227,6			1	Leopard 8 ,,Petite Guy"	35,33
2	T-157	239,7			2	Leopard 9 ,,NéNé Noir"	33,67
3	TB-147 Tello	239,8			3	T-157	33,65
4	Leopard 9 ,,NéNé Noir"	240,4			4	TB-147 Tello	33,4
5	K-68	242,6			5	K-68	33,39
6	T-155	246,7			6	T-155	33,34
7	Robore	248			7	Robore	32,42
8	T-156	250,3			8	T-156	32,16
9	DDL-02	254,3			9	Putre	31,29
10	DDL-03	255,9			10	Z-1	31,09
11	Putre	255,9			11	DDL-02	30,89
12	DDL-04	267,1			12	DDL-03	30,29
13	Z-1	273,4			13	DDL-04	29,21

P.S.:
I strongly advice to take a look at the pictures - they are quite interesting. All of them. And besides, that's why I made them.

P.P.S.:
If you are interested in the detailed results, feel free to ask.