Hello again.

Here is my further contribution to the debate, and I hope it is of use. I welcome the discussion, having a great interest in the affairs of Smith's Dock vessels, a fact you will all have gathered.
My basic information, as presented on Siri's site is as follows:-
Yard No 1061 ELLESMERE (KOS XXIV)
1062 BUTTERMERE (KOS XXV)
1063 THIRLMERE (KOS XXVI)
1064 WINDERMERE (SUDEROY VII)
1065 TIERN No former name.

This is from a yard list obtained from the curators of the last repository of Smith's Dock material some years ago, and I consider it to be a reliable source of information. It is of course possible that there was errors made when it was compiled but I have not located any as yet, even though there are over 1,200 vessels in the list.

Now let us turn back to 1939 and examine the situation then.
At the time The Admiralty were very short of vessels; every available craft that was considered suitable was either bought, requisitioned or hired. Another document relating to Smiths, and in my possession states that:
"as the whalers were building, but no installments had been paid, they were purchased by Admiralty".

Moving forward to the end of the war, or to 1946, we find the Admiralty getting rid of large numbers of surplus vessels, either by direct sales, "returns to owners", for hired or requisitioned vessels, or simply by selling for scrap.
So we can say with some certainty that our whalers were sold off, having been purchased in 1939. This brings us to the point of asking to whom were they sold, and most of these answers are already known though Lloyd's Registers and company histories.

As to who actually placed the original orders back in 1939 is a bit harder to answer, given that there is not much material left from that time in relation to Smith's Dock. When I am in England on holiday, I make a point of examining records relating to the company, and this is one more item to be examined next time. In the meantime it might be quicker if one of our Norwegian friends examined the records of the two companies involved to see if they can find any records of the orders placed with Smith's in say 1938/39. This would answer the problem of the SUDEROY boat, and the KOS ones too.
I would be very interested in the result myself.
It should be noted here that many company records were lost during the war in England by bombing and fire, a situation that I am sure relates to German records too.

As for the renaming of TIERN from GRASMERE to WASTWATER, *dmiralty".

Moving forward to the end of the war, or to 1946, we find the Admiralty getting rid of large numbers of surplus vessels, either by direct sales, "returns to owners", for hired or requisitioned vessels, or simply by selling for scrap.
So we can say with some certainty that our whalers were sold off, having been purchased in 1939. This brings us to the point of asking to whom were they sold, and most of these answers are already known though Lloyd's Registers and company histories.

As to who actually placed the original orders back in 1939 is a bit harder to answer, given that there is not much material left from that time in relation to Smith's Dock. When I am in England on holiday, I make a point of examining records relating to the company, and this is one more item to be examined next time. In the meantime it might be quicker if one of our Norwegian friends examined the records of the two companies involved to see if they can find any records of the orders placed with Smith's in say 1938/39. This would answer the problem of the SUDEROY boat, and the KOS ones too.
I would be very interested in the result myself.
It should be noted here that many company records were lost during the war in England by bombing and fire, a situation that I am sure relates to German records too.

As for the renaming of TIERN from GRASMERE to WASTWATER, (not CASTWATER), this could have been done for one of several reasons, the most likely being that it was changed to avoid confusion with another naval vessel already in service. This was done on occasion. In any case it was perhaps a bad choice, as the name WASTWATER was frequently miss-spelt, especially by the American Navy as WASTEWATER!

By the way, the names chosen were taken from bodies of water in the English Lake District, generally rather placid and not very suited to warships I feel!

n the case of TIERN, my information on her later life comes from Lloyd's Registers, records in Western Australia, and other sources. I am pleased to hear something of her life after 1946, and perhaps I should make clear that my reference to her as a salvage tug dates from 1958 or 1959 when she was disposed of by the whaling company in Western Australia, and not from her sale by The Admiralty in 1946.

As to the various published sources mentioned in this correspondence, and possible misprints, I can only point out that errors have been made, -and still are made-, in books, even ones of reference and well respected. I say this without being derogatory at all; it is a fact of life for researchers, as I am sure many others will agree.
A case in point is the information quoted from Colledge relating to BUTTERMERE becoming TIERN.

So, as I see it, we need to 8not CASTWATER), this could have been done for one of several reasons, the most likely being that it was changed to avoid confusion with another naval vessel already in service. This was done on occasion. In any case it was perhaps a bad choice, as the name WASTWATER was frequently miss-spelt, especially by the American Navy as WASTEWATER!

By the way, the names chosen were taken from bodies of water in the English Lake District, generally rather placid and not very suited to warships I feel!

n the case of TIERN, my information on her later life comes from Lloyd's Registers, records in Western Australia, and other sources. I am pleased to hear something of her life after 1946, and perhaps I should make clear that my reference to her as a salvage tug dates from 1958 or 1959 when she was disposed of by the whaling company in Western Australia, and not from her sale by The Admiralty in 1946.

As to the various published sources mentioned in this correspondence, and possible misprints, I can only point out that errors have been made, -and still are made-, in books, even ones of reference and well respected. I say this without being derogatory at all; it is a fact of life for researchers, as I am sure many others will agree.
A case in point is the information quoted from Colledge relating to BUTTERMERE becoming TIERN.

So, as I see it, we need to know who placed the original orders for the whalers concerned, the rest should then fall into place, and I will be pleased to hear from anyone who can sort it out.
I have not gone into details of the losses involved in the "LAKES" class vessels, but I have details on them if anyone is interested.

I hope all this goes some way to solving the problem, and thanks to Trygve for starting it going.

What a great forum this is, Siri!

John Gibson.