Hi Lindsay, Just found your page on Rushen Castle/Weather Surveyor. I can't give you a lot of help as we are talking a long time ago now, but I was in the Met. Office and started my voyages to sea on board OWS Weather Watcher which I believe was a Flower Class corvette. Let's say it was "cosy". When Weather Surveyor was commissioned we thought we were in the lap of luxury! No longer did we have to go below for the Met Office but had a large building on the rear deck forrard of the balloon shed. We went out from James Watt Dock to , usually, Station India or Juliett. Very occasionally we strayed up North to Station Alpha or off the Bay of Biscay to Kilo. We usually relieved Dutch weather ships on station, and they in turn relieved us. They were the "Cirrus" and the "Cumulus" I believe we also relieved the French on one occasion. They had the "France I" or "France II". Our job on station was to remain as close to the centre of the station grid as possible. We did hourly surface weather observations, flew "Pilot" balloons at 0600Z and 1800Z and did full radio-sonde flights at 0000Z and 1200Z. I think we had a crew of about 57 at that time. We had a Captain Morgan in charge, and I believe the First Mate was McCreath, although I could be wrong on that one. We were also on station as an Air Sea Rescue station for any trans-Atlantic airliner having to ditch. The upperworks were painted a bright yellow to enable a pilot to spot us against the sea. We had occasional "Methop" exercises where a Shackleton from St. Mawgan (?) would overfly us and drop the mail from the UK. Their approach was treated as an aircraft intending to ditch. As a Met Assistant I had the job of standing on the bridge and writing down bearings, etc. As I say, time dims some things. There is a book around - now out of print - called "Gap of Danger" which gave an account of life on the weather ships - I think it was the Weather Monitor they used. I should know the author's name but it has slipped my memory just now. Hope my few ramblings have helped your research a little bit. If only digital cameras had been about then , what an archive we would have had! Best of luck in your research. Bill Sibley