Can someone help interpret illegible hand writing?

Question

I have a scan of an RN record of service with an illegible entry.

The entry realtes to service in the HM Coast Guard during 1914 in the Southern district (South Kent and Sussex coasts).

The image is at : https://www.wikitree.com/photo/jpg/Miller-68751

Towards the bottom of the page is an entry that I cannot decifer, what I have is possibly : S**ff**tur vessels (Northernbank).  Coastguards were sometimes accomodated in Watch Vessels, hulked warships at the ends of their lives.

Can anyone crack this?

Thanks

Nick Miller

Answer 1

Looks like "Ineffective Vessels" to me.

Comments

You are rigtht, it does.  However it make no sence to class a ship "ineffective".

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If you Google

"ineffective vessels" shipping

(including the quote marks), the phrase does show up.

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It may be Coast Guard jargon wrom when they were still part of the RN, but it still makes lttle sence.

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I agree that it's ineffective vessels and it looks like it's qualified with (pilot is sick) or something similar underneath

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Thanks Gill. The bit underneath seems to be in parentheses. I can't read it, but I don't think the first letter is p for pilot. Instead, on the next line down, I think it says Leigh on Sea, with the loop of the L overlapping the first word above in the parentheses.

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You're right, it's difficult to work out what it says.

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We think that it is (Northbank).  But again we dont know what that might refer to.

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Wouldn't it mean the north bank of the Thames estuary? That is where Leigh-on-Sea is situated.

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No, thatv was the Eastern district, the posting was some where in the Southern district, running west from Dover

I have carried out a search of the OS maps of the south coast ^[4] for Coast Guard stations which identified Mousehole as the most likely candidate for the word in (brackets).  This means that the illegible entry above will be "#**ff**tyr* Vessels..