1928 Fishing Trawler, etc.

A month and a half ago I posted photos here of Picton Castle as a freighter and a barque and only alluded to its previous incarnations as Swansea motorized fishing trawler and minesweeper.  Below is what she looked like as a minesweeper.  A crewman wrote:  “The minesweeper service lost more ships than any other branch of the Royal Navy as sweeping mines was very dangerous work. In fact, one day while on patrol a mine exploded under the ship and lifted her clean out of the water — all 300 tons of her. Fortunately, no real damage occurred.”  The really serendipitous story in the link above is how this minesweeper became known as “liberator of Norway.”

Many thanks to Nobby Peers for use of this photo.  As of this writing, the barque Picton Castle is in port in Madeira,  a little over 500 miles west of Morocco.

The Bath ME built trawler Georgetown, 1928, also went from trawler to minesweeper USS Linnet. although I’ve found no record of what became of her after WW2.