Belfast's Forgotten Hero: HMS Caroline

A century ago, one of the largest sea battles in history

began in the North Sea.

It was May 1916, at the height of the First World War,

and the two most powerful navies in the world,

Britain and Germany, faced off just off the coast of Denmark.

It was to be the only full-scale clash of battleships

in the entire war.

It lasted just 12 hours.

But the sheer scale of the encounter was unimaginable.

250 warships and over 100,000 sailors engaged in the battle.

It was called the Battle of Jutland

and here in Belfast is the last remaining warship of that fight -

HMS Caroline.

Although she survived this legendary showdown,

HMS Caroline has recently been engaged

in a different kind of battle -

to avoid being sent to the scrap-yard.

But now her future's been secured.

Over the last four years an army of engineers, specialists

and craftsmen have been working against the clock to turn

HMS Caroline into a floating museum,

in time for the 100-year anniversary of the Battle of Jutland,

on May 31st 2016.

Ever since she arrived here at Alexandra Dock in 1924,

HMS Caroline has remained a still and silent fixture,

largely overlooked by the Belfast public.

Very few realised that what they were looking at is a unique

piece of naval history.

From the very beginning, she was special.

In her day, HMS Caroline was at the forefront of naval engineering.

She was designed to slice through the battering waves of the North Sea

at unprecedented speeds.

She could steam at over 28 knots,

making her one of the fastest ships in the entire Grand Fleet.

Her state-of-the-art design was in demand.

As war loomed in Europe in early 1914,

the naval arms race with Germany accelerated.

Britain needed a ship like Caroline and they needed her quick.

And that is precisely what they got.

Her keel was laid at Birkenhead's Cammell Laird shipyard

on 28th January 1914.

Just eight months later, she was ready for launch.

That's more than a month quicker than most ships in her class.

But 100 years later, it's going to take another major

feat of engineering to restore HMS Caroline to her former glory.

And we're going to be there for every step in the process.

I'm going to be getting my hands dirty

to understand what it takes to bring a warship back to life

and fit for the 21st century.

While I'll be diving into the history of this incredible ship

and examining her heroic day at the Battle of Jutland.

Together, we're going to pay service to one of the greatest

ships in Belfast's history.

The story of this historic vessel's restoration begins in 2011,

not here at Alexandra Dock,

but less than two miles away,

in the heart of Belfast's Cathedral Quarter.

This is where HMS Caroline's military career officially ended.

When she was decommissioned in 2011, it wasn't in Portsmouth,

it was right here at St Anne's Cathedral.

At the time she was the second-oldest ship in active service.

What few people knew is that apart from her starring role

in the Battle of Jutland,

most of Caroline's career was spent as a training ship

here in Belfast for Northern Irish recruits entering the Royal Navy.

But once she was decommissioned, Caroline's fate was uncertain.

There was talk of towing her back to Portsmouth and restoring her there.

Or of scrapping her.

The National Museum of the Royal Navy,

backed by the Northern Irish Government,

launched a campaign for funding and for a change of ownership

to keep her in Belfast and restore her here.

But as the debate dwindled on,

the effects of another brutal winter took their toll on Caroline.

Her days looked numbered.

When you look at Caroline from here,

it's easy to imagine her cutting through the waves in a battle.

She was built for war...

..and in early 1914 it looked as if she was going to get it.

Germany's shipbuilding industry had been

hard at work during the early years of the 20th century.

For nearly a decade,

a naval arms race between Germany and Britain had raged.

Naval tactics and technology were evolving consistently

in the ten years or so before the start of the First World War.

And the Imperial German Navy had begun to realise

that they could not out-build Great Britain

in terms of battleships and battle cruisers.

So the Imperial German Navy said,

"We'll build torpedo-boat destroyers,"

and that's where Caroline came in.

She was specifically built to screen

the battle cruisers and the battleships of the Grand Fleet

from torpedo-boat destroyers.

Britain may have ruled the waves for 100 years,

but Germany was eager to compete.

A confrontation would signal which power was now the greatest.

In a deliberate plot to lure the British Fleet out into open waters,

where they'd be most vulnerable,

Germany moved her fleet up to Jutland,

off the Danish Coast, on 31st May 1916.

The British Grand Fleet followed.

The stage was set for the biggest naval action,

and only fleet action,

since the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

As the debate over her future dragged on,

time was running out for the rapidly deteriorating warship.

While Caroline's only ship-keeper, Billy Hughes,

did everything he could to stop the decay,

Captain John Rees, the restoration-project chairman,

was all too aware they were fighting a losing battle.

What we have here is the effects of the corking failing,

the wood expanding with the ingress of water.

And this particular piece of iroko has now sprung.

You can see that actually the doweling piece

is no longer holding it in.

And ultimately if these sections of the deck are not treated

then the water will continue to penetrate,

destroy larger areas of the wood,

and penetrate and corrode the deck below,

and water will ingress into the interior part of the ship.

But then, in late 2013, after two years of debate

and uncertainty about her future, there was a breakthrough.

A small press conference on board the ship announced that

HMS Caroline had a double cause for celebration.

A transfer of ownership that ensured Caroline would stay in Belfast,

and a heritage funding package of almost £2 million.

Thank you for all coming here today.

Special occasion. Marks two things.

First of all, the official transfer of the ship

to the National Museum of the Royal Navy.

We now own it.

And it is fortuitous that we could all be here today, because

it is the 100th anniversary of the laying of the keel of Caroline

in Birkenhead.

We're very excited that she is staying,

and more than that, she has secured that amount of funding that will

allow us to bring her back to life,

so we're delighted that we've got to this day.

This first tranche of funding wasn't enough to complete

the restoration, but it would get the process started.

The first priority is to have a look at her hull.

In early May 2014,

a team of divers braved the murky waters of the Alexandra Dock.

They examined every inch of the hull,

and the waters surrounding the ship.

No easy task when you're dealing with something over 420 feet long,

weighing close to 4,000 tonnes.

I've done a few ships now

and on this one especially it's got 30 years of marine growth on

so as you can imagine the barnacles and whatnot are really thick,

like, literally, you can put your fist through them

and it just keeps going.

The reason for this detailed underwater survey

is to prepare for one of the most challenging phases

of the proposed restoration -

moving the ship to a dry-dock facility,

right beneath two of Belfast's most famous landmarks.

Belfast has a rich shipbuilding history.

And there is no company here more famous than Harland & Wolff.

They built the Titanic, of course.

And today the company's giant cranes are the most iconic

feature of the Belfast skyline.

So the plan is to tow Caroline here

so that vital work can be carried out on her hull.

The first time she'll be taken out of Alexandra Dock

in a quarter of a century.

But first, an even more urgent priority is to tackle

the rotting wooden deck.

In charge of the project, ship-restoration expert Craig McCoo.

My journey started 31 years ago as a labourer with the shipyard,

helping the shipwright to repair the very decks we're standing on.

I had a very chequered examination result

and my father who was in the shipyard at the time

decided to teach me a lesson,

which sort of backfired,

because it was an extremely enjoyable time in my life

before I decided to go back and pass those exams.

Since the start of the project we have taken up the rotten decks.

We've got the new wood ready to put down.

We've got the portholes. 117 portholes have to come off,

replace the broken glass, get them polished up and get them back in.

The whole trick is to get the fabric of the ship back to

where it was in 1915 when it was built.

The £2 million heritage money was a lifeline that would cover

Caroline's most basic repairs,

and prevent further deterioration.

What was really needed was a huge injection of cash

to completely overhaul and restore Caroline to her former glory.

You've done a bit of Grattan's-catalogue modelling or something, I can tell.

And then in October 2014, amid a flurry of media attention,

Captain Rees and the team announced they'd received a £12 million grant,

the Heritage Lottery Fund's single largest award to Northern Ireland ever.

Well, the money will now allow us

to do a major conservation programme on the entirety of the ship.

To know now that we can carry on literally full steam ahead

with the conservation and interpretation of Caroline

is wonderful news.

With all the funding in place,

the plan now is to turn HMS Caroline into a museum

in time for the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Jutland,

on 31st May 2016.

That's just 19 months away.

As anyone who's worked on massive engineering projects before knows,

the best-case scenario is always tempered by reality.

And it rarely goes according to plan.

And the team's racing against the clock.

They've got some really tight deadlines.

As project manager for the entire Caroline restoration,

it's Jonathan Porter's responsibility

to see the job through.

What part of the project or job scares you the most?

The time.

The time is the issue for us and we have absolutely no spare time left.

How are you going to overcome this lack of time?

We're looking now at getting contractors started

before the previous contractor's finished.

And that's more like a relay, with the different teams,

-as in they're overlapping?

-Well, exactly.

In a relay you pass the baton from one runner to another,

whereas in this case the second runner will start running

before the baton is passed.

It sounds a bit more complicated,

but how many teams have you got in action

over the course of this project?

Yeah, we have six different contracts in place at the same time.

So, yeah, there'll be a lot of people working on the ship,

a lot of bodies,

and they've all got their own agendas to get their own bit done.

We're really looking forward to seeing the final job.

And anything I can do to help along the way as well,

I'll get stuck in, cos I love what you're doing.

-I think I'll take your phone number!

-THEY LAUGH

Demolition, but without ruining history. That sounds quite tough.

-But I'll give it a go.

-Good!

When the Fleet sailed out from Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands

toward Jutland, it was under the command of Admiral John Jellicoe,

who knew that the stakes were incredibly high.

Churchill once said of Jellicoe

that he was the only person who could lose the war in a day.

And by that he meant that Great Britain had established a principle

of command of the sea.

The reason why Jutland was so important

is that what the Germans wanted to do was to try and achieve parity.

And for that they had to sink a large number of the British fleet.

HMS Caroline was a crucial part of the British defence strategy.

She was engineered to be different.

And her secret weapon can still be seen today in the heart of the ship.

What is so special about this are the Parsons steam turbines.

They're the only ones in situ anywhere in the world,

and these steam turbines, along with burning oil, not coal,

was a revolution, certainly in 1914.

And the combination of this technological innovation

really made her the greyhound of the ocean.

This was a Formula One racing car of the Grand Fleet.

These vast turbines are the jewels in Caroline's crown.

They are what made her one of the fastest war ships of her day,

with a top speed of 28.5 knots.

Typically, she had to be quick enough to run down on torpedo-boat destroyers, who could go faster.

When she'd spotted the capital units of the High Seas Fleet

she also had to be fast enough to run back

and then pass the messages to the Grand Fleet.

HMS Caroline is a ship steeped in history.

Her long and varied career poses a challenge for Jef Maytom,

Director of Interpretation for the restoration of Caroline.

Now, how do you choose the date in HMS Caroline's history

and say, "That's how we want to restore her"?

It's a key question.

And a lot of time is spent thinking which places we should keep

and which we should change, or put back.

For example, the drill hall,

or what we now call the drill hall,

that was built as a gunnery school in 1924,

that was a gunnery school, and four of Caroline's guns were put

in the corner of that space, and that was used for teaching.

We have no intention of removing that.

We have to take into consideration the story we're trying to tell.

The Jutland story is a strong story.

That is the spine of the story and hanging off that

are all these other little changes

and training she's done over the years.

Before any serious restoration work can begin,

one big problem urgently needs to be addressed.

The ship is riddled with asbestos.

Shipbuilders of the early 20th century loved asbestos

because of its incredible physical properties.

Not only is it flame-resistant,

but it absorbed sound, which in a ship like Caroline

makes all the difference when you're on the open seas,

and the engines are roaring down below.

For the sailors who worked Caroline's mighty engines,

noise was an occupational hazard.

But for all her crew,

it was those all-important fire and heat resistant properties

that made asbestos a vital component of the ship.

Out at sea, laden with cordite and other explosive materials,

a fire on board would have been disastrous.

Under enemy attack, like she was at Jutland,

asbestos could literally save lives.

Today we know that far from being a life-saver,

asbestos is a very dangerous substance

giving off lethal, cancer-causing fibres.

For Caroline, that means

nearly a century after the asbestos was put in

it's time to remove it, or make it safe.

Fortunately, the team has been given a head start.

The Ministry of Defence already dealt with

the worst of the asbestos while the ship was still in active service.

We took hundreds of samples from different areas of the ship.

And the discovery was that she's not actually in too bad a condition

as far as asbestos is concerned.

There are some areas that we have found asbestos,

in the engine room, within the actual Parsons turbine engines,

as it was used to help insulate,

and we've found it behind some of the wall panelling,

so we're working with specialist contractors to do that.

-So, you have a gasket here, on the flange.

-Yeah.

-Right.

The man in charge of that specialist team is Peter Carberry.

He's been in the asbestos business for 20 years.

But while carrying out the survey,

he discovers something that surprises even him.

We did find a particularly rare type of asbestos called anthophyllite.

I have some of it here. It's this.

-Wow.

-And you can see it's fluffy but very lethal.

And I think it was probably used because it might

absorb shock waves, or explosions, better than the other types.

And I suppose even though it's a horrible material,

-it is part of the history of this restoration, really.

-Exactly.

Peter's task is probably the longest-running single challenge

of the entire refit.

His team will be on the ship for four months,

searching for, and either treating or removing,

every last trace of deadly asbestos.

For over a century,

sailors walked these corridors while serving in the Royal Navy.

That's an awful lot of stories, and that's an awful lot of history.

In the months and weeks before the Battle of Jutland,

life for the 289 crew stationed on HMS Caroline

could be tough and uncomfortable.

Their day-to-day regime included regular patrols in the North Sea.

And the ship had the reputation of always being on the move.

So life would have been busy.

The sailors did their own laundry in the communal wash stations,

helped with the preparation of their meals,

and when the men weren't carrying out drills,

there was time for a bit of fun.

HMS Caroline was affectionately known as Carrie,

and the crew often had "Carrie-Ons",

and entertained themselves by singing and dressing up,

sometimes as women.

On 31st May 1916,

all the training and preparation of Caroline's crew

would be put to the test,

as she was called into battle.

The Battle of Jutland lasted just 12 hours.

Yet Caroline was involved in two major incidents,

one in which she could have been sunk,

and the other where she tried to do the sinking.

Three hours into the battle,

Caroline narrowly avoided being hit,

with torpedoes running past either side of her.

Just hours later, she was in action again.

But this time she turned the tables,

firing three torpedoes at a German vessel.

Diaries of the men on board Caroline at Jutland reveal what happened next.

By all the rules of gunnery, the next broadside should have

finished our career, but our guardian angel

was still protecting us, for the next broadside missed us,

the shells screamed over our heads.

Guns were hurling 15" shells into opposing fleets

with roars and flashes,

as if scores of thunderstorms had met and got angry.

The sea, which before had been calm,

became churned into waves and foam,

caused by the speed and movements of scores of ships.

Of course, that was 100 years ago,

and there's no-one alive today who can tell us

actually what it was like to be there at Jutland.

However, we do have a first-hand account.

Incredibly, we've found a copy of a home recording

made in 1971 of Caroline's chief gunner at Jutland, James Weddick.

He was born in Limerick,

and his naval career began at the tender age of 15,

back in the 19th century.

The recording really hammers home the reality of

what Caroline's young sailors faced at the Battle of Jutland,

and afterwards, when she served in the East Indies,

before she came out of active service, moved to Belfast,

and was modified to serve as a training vessel in 1939.

Broadly after the Second World War,

this area was enclosed by a rather unlovely structure

and was used as the .22 rifle range by the Royal Naval Reserve.

As you can see now, it's a bit of a lay-apart store.

The team has decided to restore the port waist to its original glory,

which means the rifle range has got to go.

It's a big job.

First, welders must cut away the solid-steel structure.

Then they need to attach metal anchor points

so they can individually lift

each huge and heavy slab by crane onto dry land.

Once the decision's been made to get rid of the newer partitions,

it's time for the real action to begin.

Demolition.

Now, it won't take the team long,

so I'm going to see if I can go give them a hand.

Spence, what's the plan? What's going on here?

The aim in this area

is to strip back to the original features of the ship

that were present when it was built in the early 1900s.

Cool. I'm ready to help. Can I join in?

-Of course you can.

-All right, let's go!

I'm winning, I think.

The problem is these are hard conditions

but everyone in here's doing a good job.

Only thing I'm a bit embarrassed about is these guys are making me look bad,

so...better get back to work.

Meanwhile, back at the project's headquarters,

Jef makes a surprise discovery.

An old newspaper, dating back more than half a century!

Now, someone's put this on our desk,

so we're not entirely sure where they've got it from.

It's the Northern Whig, a local Belfast paper, isn't it?

There we are, June 29th 1951.

I suspect it would have come from behind partitioning

put in in the '50s.

I bet it's in the...

I wonder if it's where they cut through the disabled heads,

-in that battery room.

-Maybe, that's where they've been working.

CONTRACTOR: Or maybe captain's pantry.

That actually has all the wood shavings still in the floor space,

so, you know, out of sight, out of mind.

I think what's significant about the date is it coincides with

the big Harland & Wolff fit-out,

which we've got plans for, so '51, '52.

Ha, fantastic!

Another way of bringing the role of the ship in the Battle of Jutland

into focus is to view the ship from where the captain would have stood.

For that, you have to climb to one of the highest areas of the ship.

-Captain's sea cabin.

-Wow.

-Chart room.

-Yeah.

-But we're going further up.

-Up here.

-Great.

'I don't know exactly where Jef is taking me,

'but he promises it will blow me away!'

-Wow! Ooh!

-THEY CHUCKLE

So was this the crow's nest?

Well, in a sense.

This, actually, it's one of the most important spaces on the ship.

This is where Caroline was commanded from,

so you have to imagine the captain, Captain Crooke, stood here,

the officer of the watch, canvas on these rails here,

simple glass windscreen above that, and that's it.

Quite exposed, though, to the...

-Completely exposed.

-So good old-fashioned British weather.

Put on your duffle coat and stand here in the British weather,

but it's here he would have stood and commanded Caroline.

Compass binnacle, centrally here.

Various voice pipes, because below here we've got

the helmsman, or coxswain, he's steering the ship.

So it's, like, two degrees starboard...

Yep, all those commands, and either side we've got engine-room

telegraphers who are running the machines, ding, ding, ding...

-Going back to the engines.

-Back to the engine room.

-Wow.

So all the commands from here to steer the ship.

What if they couldn't hear? If they were shouting down, it was too windy?

Well, they'd thought of that one.

Just here was a little brass grating

and they could shout down there.

So if all else fails, on your knees, shout down there, full steam ahead.

Simple as that.

This is the archaeology, up here as well.

This decking, this teak decking,

it was hidden beneath a layer of bitumen.

-So you've actually stripped it back?

-That's been stripped.

There was a steel structure came off the top, heavy steel structure,

took off the bitumen, and we found this original planking.

-It's in great condition as well.

-Fantastic condition.

I have to say, it's quite sad,

but I think this is probably one of my most favourite features

that I've seen on the entire ship.

It's lovely to find this evidence. We've lost the front, sadly.

Someone's hacked that off, but this is just fantastic,

and every reason to believe that it was on the ship at Jutland.

So they actually would have stood here.

They actually stood here,

and commanded the ship and looked out

-and saw the Battle of Jutland.

-Gosh.

-So it's a fantastic space.

-Yeah.

When Caroline was built in 1914,

steel warships had only been around for half a century.

Steel offered greater strength and protection,

but also brought some new problems

that required a bit of creative thinking.

This is Caroline's navigation bridge.

This is where the helmsman would be behind the wheel

taking orders from the commander up above.

One of the key pieces of equipment here was, of course,

the ship's compass.

But because it relies on the earth's magnetic field,

the compass wouldn't work in a structure made of steel.

So the solution was simple.

Build the entire thing out of a non-magnetic metal.

This structure is made entirely from brass!

The brass exposed by the restoration process provides

another clue to the ship's past.

When Caroline was designed, before the First World War,

her bridge originally had six glass windows.

When it became clear that she was going to battle for real,

four of these six vulnerable weak spots

were covered up with brass plates, like this one.

It meant poorer visibility, but greater protection,

and it may well have been one of the reasons that Caroline

survived the Battle of Jutland.

But she was one of the lucky ones.

Six hours into the battle, night was beginning to fall,

and visibility was poor.

Yet both the fleets continued to engage.

The casualties were numerous on both sides

and as night closed in the British withdrew to devise a new plan.

The British fleet planned to manoeuvre into a position of attack

by first light, and cut the German fleet off from the port.

But under cover of darkness the Germans attacked the light forces

that made up the British rear guard and broke their way through.

By catching the British off-guard,

the German fleet sneaked past and headed home.

The battle was over.

It would take days for both sides to take stock of their losses,

and, crucially, to determine who had won.

For her new role as a 21st-century floating museum,

it's vital that Caroline is accessible to everyone.

But she was built with vertical ladders, cramped spaces

and narrow doorways.

Clearly, some drastic changes are needed.

So what the guys are doing is actually widening

some of these doorways below decks.

And that's because obviously 100 years ago

able-bodied seamen could easily navigate the ship.

But now we want everyone to be able to enjoy HMS Caroline.

So, by making them a little bit wider, cutting through the steel,

it's going to be perfectly suitable for disabled access.

Widening a few doorframes is one thing,

but what about something a lot more substantial?

To allow for maximum public access,

the team also plan to install several lift shafts.

Definitely not a feature she'd have had in her Jutland days.

But how do you do that

without ruining 100 years' worth of architectural heritage?

This is just one of a thousand headaches facing the project's

Director of Interpretation, Jef.

We're in the lower deck. These were officers' cabins.

But this is a space that we want to compromise by putting a lift.

I mean, a historic ship is a tremendous challenge.

It has many periods, many phases, there's original fabric,

there's things that have been added and taken away.

But to simply say we will turn it back to a certain thing,

that doesn't necessarily make it accessible for the public,

so a key part of what we do is to open up the ship

so the public can actually access her safely.

So if we put a lift here,

we will have to compromise some of these major beams,

and that is historic intervention.

When we take that out,

we will preserve it,

so that if at a future date there was a different plan, different scheme,

and someone said "We don't need a lift any more,

"we want to put that beam back,"

theoretically that can all be put back

and the ship returned to its original state.

It's now August 2015,

and the asbestos team are about to begin work on

Caroline's four mighty Parsons turbines.

The engine room will be out of bounds

until this hazardous job is finished.

The areas are monitored by CCTV.

We've got four cameras on in there,

and you can see the guys,

and we know what they're doing.

We're able to monitor them.

Is it slow? How many guys do you have in there at a time?

There's ten men in there.

They're in there seven days a week.

Doing that sort of work in these awkward conditions, I mean,

have you got specialist tools and equipment?

-No.

-No?

-No. It's all hand tools, scrapers, wire brush.

Power tools will release more fibres than wire brush and all that.

-A lot of elbow grease in there.

-A lot of elbow grease.

The asbestos team has to work

in dark, difficult and cramped conditions,

not dissimilar to the men who worked in the engine room a century ago.

It's now just six months before the ship has to be completed,

and one thing is becoming increasingly hard to ignore.

Instead of being towed off to Harland & Wolff

like we expected,

Caroline is still right here in Alexandra Dock.

So, Jonathon, since I saw you last time, how have you been getting on?

We've had some challenges in terms of getting lease agreements

signed for the Alexandra Dock

and for the pump house, which will be the visitors' centre.

That's obviously the bureaucracy associated with

getting these things across the line

and the legal process is taking a little bit longer.

Is that a diplomatic way of saying you're not where you wanted to be?

Well, yes, it's a diplomatic way of saying that.

We're basically unpacking the project in three separate phases now.

Phase one is the ship.

Phase two is the dry docking, to do some repair works to the hull,

and phase three is the pump house and visitors' centre.

So, phase one, the ship, will be 100% complete come May.

With just six months until the Jutland centenary,

looking around the ship as she is today

makes completing even phase one, the ship itself,

in time for the opening seem like an impossibly daunting task.

Are you confident the next time I come back that you're still

going to be on schedule?

That depends when you come back.

-HE LAUGHS

-How long do you need?

No, we're on programme to complete in May 2016,

and we will be complete in May 2016, the ship works.

Well, I'm sure I'll be along to help at that point, I hope so.

-I hope so too.

-Yeah, well, good luck.

-Good on you, thank you.

By late October, the asbestos-removal team have completed

their work in the engine room,

and the engines have been cleaned,

another highly specialised and time-consuming task.

Oh, wow.

I've been waiting for ages to come and have a look down here.

-I just can't get over how enormous it is.

-Yes.

Also a lot of metal and engine and turbine for your money, isn't there?

There is.

Cleaning this, I mean, what exactly did you have to do?

There was probably 20 or 30 layers of paint on these turbines.

Now, we didn't think we were going to get them back to the standard that they're at.

They probably haven't been in such good condition for 100 years.

That's quite a restoration, isn't it?

-Yes, they've done a really good job.

-Yeah, and just looking around,

some of this wouldn't have been seen for quite some time.

No.

The likes of these markings here wouldn't have been seen...

I suppose maybe even from the day it was painted.

And one thing that really did surprise us

was all these bolts here, individually marked.

Oh, yeah.

-Why was that, then?

-If there was an issue with the bolt,

they would know exactly where to go.

What, say, if there was... in battle there was some confusion,

then they would be able to spot the dodgy one.

Turbine 1, bolt number 10.

And how much of a major step towards completion

is getting this bit finished?

It's critical. It's absolutely critical.

This is going to be the main attraction on the ship,

and it has to be made safe.

I know you've got to make it look a little bit smarter for visitors,

but...it's awe-inspiring.

-I quite like it like this.

-Yeah, yeah.

A major part of turning Caroline into a museum

is replacing parts of her that don't exist any more.

Prop master Brendan Power has been tasked with the daunting challenge

of recreating the eight 4" guns

and the two 6" guns that made up her impressive armament at Jutland.

-Hi, Brendan. How are you doing?

-Hi, James, good to see you.

-So this must be the 6" gun?

-This is the 6" gun.

-It's enormous, look at it.

-This one's a lovely one, yeah.

Oh, wow.

It's going to be here for hundreds of years, as well,

so you must see a lot of... I'm looking around and I'm seeing a lot of kit

that's going to be seen by the public for years to come.

-Yeah, hopefully, yeah.

-Can you give me a bit of a tour?

-Yeah, sure.

-I feel like this is sort of the coolest part.

-No problem.

These are obviously the 4" guns.

Same again. They've got specific places on the boat for these.

-We're making safes over there.

-I can see a fireplace down the end.

And we're making it look realistic as we can.

Talking about that,

I'm not too hot at metalwork but I'm all right with a paintbrush

-if there's anything I can do.

-Yeah, I'll get you working straight away.

-What about doing a shell or something?

-Yeah, no problem.

Yeah, come and have a look, yeah, sure.

This is Michael, he's painting up the shells that would go with

the guns that we've been looking at.

-Am I allowed to have a go?

-I'm sure Michael wouldn't mind that at all.

So, this is all...

I'm seeing these plans here, this is actual original-based stuff.

That's the photo reference that we got with these shells.

So, just like colouring it in.

It's mad the amount of detail you must have to do on every single one.

It's very time-consuming.

Oh, cool.

It's quite crazy seeing how long every single element

of this project takes.

-Am I doing all right?

-Yeah, that's the best one you've done.

Can I take it off?

-That's not bad.

-Not bad! 6" gun.

Cool.

Well, look. I'm going to leave it to the professionals. Cheers, mate.

There's so much going on, isn't there? You've got a massive job.

Then I get a call from Jef, who has found something intriguing

in the room where Caroline's real shells were stored.

Down into the belly of the beast.

Jef is taking me three decks down into what was once

the ship's magazine.

So is this where the shells would have been kept?

It is where shells would have been kept.

When Caroline was built,

this was part of a larger space, the 4" magazine for the 4" guns on the fo'c'sle.

Here would have been a notice that would have listed

the contents of the shell room and they've painted round these notices.

Meanwhile, and you imagine you're going to climb the ladder,

and to steady yourself, put your hand back

-on the edge of that notice.

-Yeah, with my slightly greasy...

So, and you can see, on the corner bit of timber...

So those are hundred-year-old mucky fingerprints?

-Yeah. Hundred-year mucky fingerprints.

-Wow.

When the lagging was first taken out

they thought, "We've discovered 1914 handprints."

If you start to look at the plans of when she went for refit,

in 1919, she was sent out to the East Indies, much hotter climate.

And clearly they're getting concerned about the heat,

the new level of heat.

So they decide - this is what we think -

they lag the magazine against the heat of the East Indies.

When they put the lagging in, all that was preserved.

It's a bit like an archaeology dig.

But instead of mud and dinosaur bones, you're talking to me about...

-Grease, brass and steel.

-And paint.

No, it is completely archaeological.

-They tell several stories.

-They tell several.

Active service, Caroline was adapted for the West Indies.

And you can gauge all of that from a piece of wood and some...

We can gauge all that.

Above our heads, I spotted one feature that seems completely

out of place in the magazine of a historical warship.

Was it a shower room at some point as well?

LAUGHTER

No, not at all.

Yes, they're shower heads,

yes, it is a water system,

but the last thing you want in a magazine is a fire.

Ships at Jutland were lost...they were hit and lost within 30 seconds,

thousands of men killed, because sparks came down,

caught fire the magazines and the ship blew up.

This is an emergency flooding system.

If you were in charge of this magazine, and sparks came down,

you could flood this magazine.

But if you look at the cogs here...

..they connect to a rod and a wheel that goes up through the decks.

So it's possible to do exactly the same,

flood this magazine from above.

Were there any cases of that, say, at the Battle of Jutland?

There is a case where an injured officer,

his legs have been blown away,

the last thing he does is order the magazine beneath him to be flooded.

That actually saved the ship.

Other ships at Jutland were blown to smithereens.

The 12 intense hours of battle took its toll on both sides.

A total of 14 British ships were sunk at Jutland,

and took the lives of over 6,000 men.

German losses were less, with 11 vessels and 2,500 men.

In fact, reports from German newspapers

just two days after the battle

claimed they'd defeated the Grand Fleet.

The British population were shocked,

and Jellicoe was criticised for allowing the Germans to escape.

But by the 7th of June

details of the German casualties became clearer

and they realised they couldn't sustain such losses in the future.

Thus they ended their forays into the North Sea,

which was a victory for the British.

In fact, both sides claimed victory at the Battle of Jutland,

and it's still a topic of debate to this day.

But one thing was clear.

It changed naval tactics,

bringing the end to full-scale battleship warfare

in the First World War.

It's now March 2016,

and there are only two months to go until the opening.

It might look quiet on the outside,

but under the protective covers the contractors are busier than ever.

Almost every area on the ship is currently being worked on

as they push towards the finish line.

It's the final countdown.

We have seven weeks to go, now, until 31st May.

It's a hive of activity out there.

The volume of contractors we have on board at the minute,

we have three separate teams.

We're doing the last pieces of installation of furniture

at the moment, and the final painting. The decking's going down,

and we've all the internal fit-out happening as well,

in terms of light fittings, alarm systems, fire safety.

We've made quite a bit of progress in the last month alone.

I'm a little bit more comfortable now in terms of

being able to have all of the works completed.

I mean, that was the key risk to the entire project,

that we wouldn't get it done in time.

We're not there yet, but we're on track and we're on programme,

which is good news for me.

For the last two years,

the team have been working furiously towards a deadline,

and now it looks like it's within reach.

And we're getting a sneak preview of the inside

before she's officially revealed to the public.

Yeah, she looks all wrapped up like a Christmas present.

It's like a secret!

'Jonathan is showing us around and our very first stop is

'the busiest area on the ship...'

Oh, wow.

'..where the team are laying the new deck.'

-Amazing.

-Look at all that, matey!

How many people have you got doing the decking?

There's about 50 joiners at the moment, working in four different areas on the ship,

so we've got about 20 up here and 20 up at the back

and the rest are on the two waists.

Can't get over how much activity is going on here.

Yeah, well, once the guys finish the waists they'll then move to the aft.

The aft will be finished, then the whole team will move to the fore.

Most of this timber will actually be installed

by the end of next week and then everything else falls behind that.

What about guns? This is where the guns are, where are they?

Yeah, we're actually going to install the guns over here.

It looks like you've still got a lot of things to put back on top

when you eventually finish the decking.

Exactly, well, this is an example of one of the gun plates.

This is all original.

Yeah, these are the original gun mounts for the 4" guns

that would have been on the ship back in the day.

When you actually get the deck finished

and start putting the guns in, you start dressing it,

it becomes a warship.

Yeah, exactly, that's going to add the wow factor to the ship.

At the moment we've got all the painting done,

and we're finishing the decking.

As soon as we add the guns, it's going to give it the X factor.

With a surface area of 780 square feet,

43 tonnes of wood,

and a crew of 40 men working around the clock for six weeks,

decking is the single biggest job left for the team.

Only when it's finished

can the scaffolding and large covers on the top

finally be removed.

It's been a while since I was last on board,

and it's starting to look really impressive.

The guys are going to be working hard to the very last second

to get it finished in time.

As I walk around the ship,

it's hard not to be impressed by the dedication of the teams

who've been working tirelessly day and night

to get HMS Caroline ready to open to the public.

The range of jobs being undertaken simultaneously is just mind-blowing.

And one of the most simple-looking tasks

is the traditional process called caulking.

-Jason? Hiya, I'm James.

-How are you doing?

How are you doing? What's going on here?

This looks like a massive job.

Yes, it's massive.

What's happening?

We're caulking the decks, so we're sticking oakum,

which is hemp impregnated with oils,

in-between the seams to tighten all the planks up,

take any movement out,

then we'll put pitch over the top of it,

which will make it watertight.

Looks like a very manual... hard graft to get this done.

-Is this something they would've done 100 years ago?

-Exactly the same.

The amount of decking I've seen on HMS Caroline is quite significant.

-About 6,000 metres. Six kilometres?! Yes.

-Whoa. How much have you done?

Well, about 20 metres a day. Per group.

-So you'll be finishing at Christmas time?

-I think we've got a month.

Right, OK, so with that deadline in mind, teach me how to help,

and I'll have a go, that'd be great.

-You start with a knife iron.

-Yeah.

And so you want to put the oakum into the seam.

I'm just imagining the number of hammer blows

to do the whole of HMS Caroline must be thousands.

Thousands and thousands.

-And then you get a fatter iron just to harden it up.

-Right.

And make it nice and tight in there.

I think you're deliberately making this look easy.

-Go on, then, let's have a go.

-Have a go!

-OK. So I'm on to the thinner one to tuck it in.

-That's right, yep.

Jason, this is pretty tough.

I'm just looking at the amount of hammer blows to do all of this.

So, I reckon I'll try and do at least, I don't know,

-ten metres for you.

-OK.

-I'll regret that, won't I?

-Race?

Race?! I'm not going to race you, no way!

THEY LAUGH

Although there's still an enormous amount of work to do above deck,

down below, many areas are finished.

The old drill hall has been transformed into

an audio-visual theatre.

The public bathrooms installed.

The original kitchens restored.

And the private quarters of the officers are nearing completion.

But there is one space in particular that we are very excited to see.

This is the captain's flat we're entering into.

This space here he actually shared with the chief surgeon

and the chief engineer.

You'll see that he has his own kitchen.

-He's got his own kitchen?

-Yeah, he's got his own kitchen.

-So they've got pretty small cabins.

-They've got pretty small cabins,

but if you follow me, you can see the rest as they are.

Wow! It's spacious, isn't it?

Yeah, I mean, this is his actual living area, living quarters.

Next door we've got his bedroom,

and on ahead then there's his bathroom, with his own bathtub.

Captain's got a very luxurious space, hasn't he?

It's a pretty nice little en-suite, actually.

Yeah, he's got his own en-suite.

Next-door is his dining room.

Decent quality of life.

Yeah, exactly. He is the captain of the ship

so he does get the best accommodation.

Can we see how the rest of the shipmates lived?

I'm curious if the crew got this much space.

Yes, we'll go and show you where the junior rates lived.

I could live there quite happily.

-What, there?

-Yeah.

Our next stop will be the location of the public cafe

once the ship's opened.

It's the very same area that the crew on board HMS Caroline

would have sat in at mealtimes.

It's obviously the restaurant.

Yeah, this is actually the junior rates' mess

and we've reinterpreted it as that.

So, you can see all the bench tables,

and the idea was that all the tables were collapsible,

so at night the tables would be folded down

and they'd have slung hammocks to the hammock hooks in the ceiling.

How many people?

Well, you could have had up to 40 people using this space at night.

These are really close together.

Sort of crammed in, like sardines, actually.

It could have been less than a foot between you and your fellow officer.

So, unbelievable.

I'm trying to imagine this place with lots and lots of hammocks.

-And all these people in there.

-Very different to the captain's.

Well, I mean, when you look at the officers' accommodation

and compare it to the captain's accommodation,

it's totally different.

This is all but done, isn't it?

Yeah, this area is complete,

the end at the forward is basically for hammock and table storage,

and we just have to basically do some set dressing in here.

They've got their own individual lockers.

Yeah, we've remanufactured the lockers

to represent the lockers they would have had at the Battle of Jutland.

So these are an exact replication.

I can't imagine how it'd have been when it was hanging with hammocks.

The idea, as well, of, like, 100 years after Jutland,

having people back in here eating again,

that buzz and that noise when visitors fill it. It'll be special.

Yeah, what you see now is actually what it was like at Jutland.

Before we got to start doing the refurbishment,

it was all covered over with woodchip, wallpaper.

We remember that! I remember knocking down some up on deck.

We actually took a lot of stuff off the ship

and revealed the true nature of the vessel.

Fabulous. It looks fabulous.

I would like to see you get up in a hammock as well.

LAUGHTER

I'm not built for a hammock.

My dad may not have been comfortable in a hammock,

but I'm intrigued to know what it must have felt like

for Caroline's junior mates to sleep shoulder to shoulder,

crammed into the mess hall at night.

For a junior rate, life at sea would have been at very close quarters,

crammed into hammocks like these just a foot apart.

There's definitely a lot more space in one of the personal cabins

that the officers had, and I have to say, in high seas,

I wouldn't like to be in one of these, rocking.

But it is quite comfy.

Finally, a moment I've personally been waiting for.

Jonathan is taking me into the heart of the ship,

to Caroline's engine room.

The expertise that's gone into restoring

these enormous engines is remarkable.

These are the jewels in Caroline's crown,

and for me, the most amazing part of the ship.

Jonathan, it's been a while since I've come down here,

and the engine blocks are all still looking amazing,

and this walkway's new. What's going to happen in here?

What we're doing here is we're installing a walkway

so that the visitors who come to visit the ship can actually get

down here so that they can actually view the Parsons turbine engines

that would have driven Caroline.

The scale of the engines are enormous, they are super powerful.

Are you going to finish them off, or is this it?

What you see now is we've actually taken

27 different layers of paint off the engines,

and sort of revealed them now in the form that you see,

and we're now going to Waxoyl the engines,

and that'll be an ongoing conservation project.

What's the experience going to be like for people

when they actually come down here,

how are you going to convey the power and the noise?

The experience is going to be special.

We're going to project images onto the engines and the condensers,

as well as the sounds in the background,

just to make it really atmospheric.

You know, you're going to get

that sort of dark, eerie, special... atmosphere down here.

And with all the sounds playing in the background,

it's really going to make the area feel special.

Engine block. People don't want to see a paint job,

-they want to see HMS Caroline's power.

-Yeah.

These are the only engines of this type left in the world,

so, yeah, we want to show them off as best we can.

I'm pretty aware that the walkway needs to be completed.

Thanks for giving me the tour, but we should probably move on.

-I think we should move on.

-Yeah.

Over the last 100 years,

HMS Caroline has been on a long and ever-changing journey.

She has faced many battles,

many uncertainties about her future,

but she has remained undefeated.

Her transformation has been a fascinating

and often very challenging process,

and it's now almost complete.

Her forgotten glory has been restored,

and now her future is secure.

After years of work on this century-old ship,

it's going to be fantastic to see all of the elements come together,

and to be revealed in an incredible attraction here in Belfast.

HMS Caroline is going to be here for at least another 100 years!

Yes, another amazing feat of shipbuilding for Belfast.

Just three years ago,

she was doomed, and set to leave this city for ever.

Now she's primed to take her place in Belfast's historic naval tour.

We've got Nomadic. We've got Titanic Belfast.

But there's nothing in the world like HMS Caroline.

The sole survivor of Jutland...

..and now restored to her former glory!