Ya Toivo

Ya Toivo

IMO : 7907697

Build : 1981 by ???, UK, nr?? as HMS Challenger K07

Converted : 1999

The Ya Toivo, a highly unusual vessel as it is: she is owned by The Beer in South Africa and is being used for the mining of diamonds on the seabed off the coast of Namibia.

This is a typical example of a conversion turned ugly: she is widened, accommodation is expanded and her aftship resembles a porky pine with all those things ticking out. But the most striking eyepoint of the vessel remained untouched: the bridge.

It’s almost unbelievable that diamonds, (THE girl’s best friend) are being mined by something that doesn’t even resemble a rough diamond.

Here is what she looked like when she was still part of the Royal British Navy:

And this is what Wikipedia has to say about her:

HMS Challenger was a unique vessel in Royal Navy service — she was purpose built to support deep sea operations and saturation diving. However, she was commissioned in 1984, during a time when the Royal Navy was cutting back on expenditure, with the consequence that the Challenger was seen as an extravagance that the Admiralty could not afford. As a consequence, after less than ten years service, the ship was laid up and offered for sale. The ship was purchased by a company called Subsea Offshore, to be converted for work decontaminating hazardous waste dumped in the Baltic Sea and North Atlantic.

Well, that didn’t happen….which is actually a good thing. So now instead of bringing obsolete highly hazardous waste to the oceans she brings back shiny & sparkly stuff from the oceanfloor. A happy job for an ugly ship.

here she is in blue, not much of an improvement though:

Dunno source via the interweb

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