Roamer: Locally-built WWI cargo ship was bait for enemy U-Boats

Result is the last Carrickfergus-built ship, designed by the town’s famous shipyard owner Paul Rodgers, and the last surviving Ulster-built vessel of hundreds of small sailing ships that once plied their trade around the coasts of Britain and Ireland.

Renamed ‘Flash’, Result starred in the 1953 BAFTA nominated film ‘Outcast of the Islands’ with co-stars Trevor Howard, Ralph Richardson, Robert Morley and Wendy Hiller.

Result has been on display at the Ulster Folk and Transport museum since 1979 and Christopher Kenny, a founder/director of the non-profit company Result Carrickfergus Ltd., is hoping to bring her home.

Last weekend he outlined the ongoing series of informative events being held in the town, and there are more today and tomorrow (see below).

Result was a WWI Q-Ship, a heavily armed coasting schooner with big guns and torpedoes concealed on her deck or in her hold. Her main objective was luring enemy submarines from the depths…and sinking them!

Looking through their periscopes at women on Result’s deck, unsuspecting U-Boats gleefully surfaced to attack, but quickly discovered that the women were sailors in female attire, dressed to kill, and there were two dozen more below deck ready to man the guns.

Result’s Second-in-Command, Lieutenant George Muhlhauser, wrote a book about her war service, listing her hidden armaments - “two 18 cwt. 12-pounder guns, one forward and one aft of the mainmast… a 6-pounder gun on the port side and two fixed 14ins torpedo tubes aft, one on each quarter.”

Muhlhauser recounted a particularly eventful trip on the March 15, 1917 when a U-boat surfaced about two miles astern. “The enemy approached and at 2,000 yards began firing.”

Even though Result’s guns were hidden and most of her crew were hiding, the U-Boat was wary, so a decoy was deployed!

Half a dozen crew “one in a pink frock and bonnet” Muhlhauser recorded “took to the small boat and stood a short distance from Result, rowing in circles and doing their best impression of a terror-stricken merchant crew abandoning ship!”

The 18 remaining crew below deck “endured the continued barrage from the U-Boat which must have been warned about Q-ships because it came no closer than about 1,000 yards.”

Wasting no more time Result’s skipper, Lieutenant Mack, ordered his hidden crew to uncover their guns and blast the U-Boat.

Result’s aft 12-pounder scored a bull’s-eye with its first round - at the base of the conning tower. The next salvo from the little Carrick boat’s 6-pounder scored a hit slightly above the first, and even though the next 12-pounder missed, the U-Boat was already diving.

Result encountered another U-Boat a few hours later and after a short skirmish it dived and beat a hasty retreat. Result’s two enemy encounters in one day sustained some damage so she headed for port for repair, mainly to her sails and rigging. Her foresail alone had 13 holes in it!

Lieutenant Mack and Sailing Master Reid, who had commanded the decoy crew who abandoned ship when the first U-Boat attacked, were mentioned in despatches for their part in the action.

Result’s next scrape with an enemy submarine was ‘third time unlucky’!

At am on the April 5, 1917, near North Hinder (Noordhinder) Light, a U-Boat unleashed “a terrible barrage” Muhlhauser recounted.

“The enemy’s 11th shell hit Result amidships on the waterline, setting fire to the magazine store and injuring two men.”

Before the decoy (and the sailor in the pink frock!) could do their impression of abandoning ship, another shell blasted through her hull, causing severe damage and injuring several crew.

Though listing badly, Result continued to fire at the U-Boat which dived, and waited - presuming the Q-Ship would sink. So Lieutenant Mack released depth-charges and it ran for cover! With her hull temporally patched up Result limped back to port. But her career as ‘bait’ for the Germans was over.

She’d been photographed by the enemy so preying U-Boats would treat her ‘with respect’, or at least they wouldn’t succumb to sailors in pink frocks abandoning ship!

Details of today’s drop-in sessions and tomorrow’s illustrated talk are online at the Carrickfergus Tall Ship Project.