Volume Six - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - Select Aspects - The Royal Navy and Royal Naval Reserve Fleet at Penarth Dock

left - Staff Shipwright Officer inspecting the ship's side for rust behind the lagging. Thus ships are constantly being brought out of reserve, refitted and brought up to date with new equipment and then put back into reserve. This "turning around" of ships ensures that the Reserve Fleet as a whole is kept in the required state of modernisation and as ready replacements for the Fleet when required. Electrical - There is an axiom amongst all who deal with electrics which says "If electrical equipment is to kept in first class condition you must use it." It is the job of the electrical department of the Reserve Fleet to devise ways and means of preserving all types of electrical apparatus so that even after long periods, perhaps years, of idleness full efficiency can be restored in a very limited time.

Our biggest enemy, as is well known, is "Humidity" and every effort is made by sealing and using "Silica-Gel" drying compound to prevent deterioration. In some ships each individual piece of equipment is wrapped in weather-proof material, small bags of Silica-Gel being placed inside.

Other ships are dynamically dehumidified. This means that the inside of the ship is hermetically sealed and by a careful system of pipes air is drawn out of every compartment, passed through a special drying machine and then pumped back into the ship when it is dry. This causes the relative humidity to fall to a percentage where deterioration of electrical equipment, and deterioration of the hull, is negligible. Trained staff take constant readings of the relevant humidity in each compartment, and in some cases a small drying machine may be placed in a space which proves difficult to maintain at the required levels of dryness.

Radio presents its own peculiar problems and whenever possible such equipment is run at frequent intervals.