The `Seventy-Footers'
No matter how pleasant it might be to serve on a big launch with a
reasonable OC, most young sub-inspectors wanted a command - and a bit
of independence - of their own. The arrival of the first three
`seventy-footers' in 1954
made this possible. As a class of patrol
vessels that were to serve for over thirty years they left, it must be
admitted, a certain amount to be desired. Their maximum speed was between
ten and twelve knots (depending on the vessel), their plumbing was
primitive and the accommodation anything but comfortable. Also, as they
were often alongside village jetties and working craft, they harboured
rather more life than the crews might wish.
Paul Dickinson, who spent
"probably the happiest eighteen months of [his]
thirty-five years in Hong Kong" aboard one, remembers:
"...The cockroaches!
You had to learn to live with
them... you'd be sitting there with your meal, and the
cockroaches would crawl out. They didn't care if you were there or
not. When you were sleeping in your bunk, they'd be crawling all
over you. We used to try and use mosquito nets to keep them off, but
they just laughed at them. The launch was really infested - I'd go
into the galley at night and switch on the light and the whole thing
would be moving. We tried everything, fumigation bombs and so forth,
but nothing really worked. At least we had no rats."
A hardy beast, the marine cockroach.
But despite cockroaches, rock-hard bunks, no air-conditioning and the
absence of many other comforts considered essential in patrol craft of the
1990s, their crews and the young inspectors who commanded them took a
fierce pride in them. Paul Dickinson again:
"By the time I joined [Launch 28]
she had a wheelhouse, [The
first series of seventy-foot launches had open bridges with canvas
awnings. Wheelhouses were added later, although these differed
slightly from vessel to vessel.] which must have been the
first as
it was a different design from the others. She had also been the
first to be fitted with a radar set,
which by now was pretty ancient.
"But she was immaculate, like all the launches were in
those days. You could go on any sector launch, and her wooden decks
would be snowy-white. The brasswork - you could shave in it."
Another good reason for liking the `seventy-footers'
is that they were
the first launches (apart from station motor boats) to be based away from
Headquarters, a welcome situation for any junior officer.
Mike Cuningham, who was based
at Tai Po in early 1958 remembers:
"I saw the Chief Inspector
[Tony Rose]
and the Divisional
Superintendent only once in six months - a lovely job in a lovely
area."
This aspect also struck Paul Dickinson,
who served in the same area
shortly afterwards:
"Talk about being `Lord of all you surveyed!'... if Launch 1
or 2 wasn't in the sector, you were the only police presence from
Sha Tau Kok right round to Sai Kung.
The whole of Tolo, the Sha Tau Kok Peninsula,
Mirs Bay, the Sai Kung Peninsula - just our one
little seventy-foot launch... I was so happy I didn't want to
go on vacation leave!"
The crew of a seventy-foot
launch consisted of 12 men, and these
invariably developed into tight-knit groups with a `family' feel. This
could include some pretty thorough leg-pulling.
Jimmy Wong commanded
seventy-footers more than once himself, but the first time he served in
one was as a newly-promoted corporal.
"The OC was Mr Newton,
a good Cantonese [Although the Hong Kong Marine Police
has included the speakers of many Chinese
dialects in its ranks over the years,
the `lingua franca' has
invariably been Cantonese.] speaker. One day he asked my advice
about translating his name into Chinese.
I suggested `LIU TUNG',
both parts of which came from respectable sources and made up a good
Chinese name. However he then asked the other corporal in the crew,
who suggested a similar sounding `LIU TUNG'
in which the `LIU' meant
`piss' and the `TUNG' meant `bucket',
producing `Piss-bucket'. He
found out the difference from his Chinese teacher in the end,
fortunately before he had tried to use the name socially!"
