The massing of the fleet and its personnel did not always signify a
disaster, for the nature of the organisation demanded frequent exercises
and ceremonial functions (which, some felt, occasionally came under the
same heading as `disasters'!). Until the early 1960s formal competitive
`evolutions' were held, although they were discontinued after 1962, when
Paddy Malynn won the Wooden Spoon
for forgetting to attach his kedge
anchor to anything before dropping it. Informal evolutions continued to
be held by individual Sector Commanders up until the 1980s however, their
scope limited only by the imaginations of the officers concerned.
Official exercises also continued, ranging from manoeuvres
with the Royal Navy and the
Royal Hong Kong Auxiliary Air Force
to anti-terrorist and
Police Tactical Unit deployment exercises.
Ceremonial functions became more common in the 1960s and 70s. Sail-pasts, formal escorts and official `Hullo and Goodbye' procedures for Governors and Commissioners began to appear in Standing Orders; all of them needing practice and rehearsal which must be fitted into daily operations. Some ceremonies, such as the commissioning of new launches, could attract quite a lot of press attention: woe betide the junior officer who got anything wrong at one of them. Another ceremony which ultimately generated a Standing Order of its own was `Burial at Sea'. This was not burial of the whole body, which (apart from the ship's dog on one occasion) has not been carried out in Hong Kong waters from a police launch since the Second World War. The solemn committal to the Deep of the ashes of someone with links to the Command is not uncommon however, although since the occasion in the 1960s when a fluke of wind covered the official mourners with a liberal coating of the deceased the remains have been enclosed in a small weighted casket.