The steam trawler Viola was built for the Hellyer Steam Fishing Company in 1906. The Hellyer family, who originated in Devon, had owned a small fleet of sailing smacks at the end of the 1870s but during he 1880s they become involved in the construction of steam trawlers. Many of the steam trawlers built for Hellyers in the 1890s and early 1900s were intended for distant water trips to Iceland and the Faroes but by 1905 Charles Hellyer decided to build a completely new North Sea boxing fleet of steam trawlers.Hellyer’s plan was staggeringly ambitious by contemporary fishing standards. He secured the necessary financial backing to construct a fleet of fifty vessels from scratch that would be serviced by five new steam cutters. This was probably the largest venture of its kind ever carried out by any fishing port in the world. The enterprise was reported to have required an investment of £320,000.

Viola was one of the trawlers built as part of this order. She was constructed at Beverley by Cook, Welton and Gemmell, launched in February 1906 and fitted with triple expansion steam engines constructed by Amos and Smith of Hull. She was 108 feet long and 174 grt. Like most of the fleet she was built with an open bridge abaft the funnel.

Down to the Great War she worked for the Hellyers Boxing Fleet. The fleet worked well out in the North Sea and transferred their fish on almost a daily basis to fast steam cutters that ran the catches into London’s Billingsgate Market. After the outbreak of the Great War Viola was requisitioned by the Admiralty, armed with a 3-pounder gun and assigned to Auxiliary Patrol Area 2 based on Shetland, working on boom duties and patrol operations with occasional escort work. Whilst stationed there she saw action against at least one U-boat.

By September 1916 she had been refitted with a 12-pounder gun and transferred to the River Tyne for minesweeping and patrol operations. On the 13th August 1918 Viola, together with the armed trawlers John Gilman and John Brooker, played a major role in the sinking of the UB-30 off Whitby. For much of the war her skipper was Charles Allum from Hessle Road in Hull. During the Great War at least fifteen of the Hellyer fleet of fifty vessels were lost to enemy action whilst fishing or on War Service.Viola was decommissioned early in 1919 and returned for fishing. Hellyers, however, had decided to concentrate on distant water fishing off Iceland, Barents Sea and the like and sold off their remaining North Sea fleet.

Viola was sold to Norwegian owners, renamed Kapduen and was one of the first Norwegian trawlers. After a few years, however, the firm that owned her was taken over by Nils Torvald Nielsen Alonso a veteran whaler. The trawler was converted into a whale catcher with a new bridge forward of the funnel.She was involved in two major whaling trips over the next few years of the coast of Africa. The first of these, with the factory ship Bas II was quite historic, being the first expedition to carry out non-licensed pelagic whaling off the coast of Africa. Neither of these expeditions was commercially successful and by 1927 the former trawler, now renamed Dias was laid up in Sandesfjord in Norway.

In 1927 the vessel was sold to Compania Argentina de Pesca Sociedad Anonima, known as Pesca for short. Pesca operated from Grytviken in South Georgia and required a vessel for sealing. The labour force and operational management of the company were mainly Norwegian. Viola/Dias voyaged to Grytviken that year to take up duties.Henceforward, the former trawler was used for taking Elephant Seals. This activity was very carefully regulated by the Falkland Islands Government and is an early example of successful conservation – in contrast to whaling. The island was split into divisions, one area of which was rested each year. Only adult bulls could be taken and a close season was introduced.

Because of her cargo carrying capacity, Dias was in demand to support expeditions both to South Georgia and the South Atlantic. These included the relief of the Argentine meteorological station at Laurie Island. The round trip from South Georgia to the South Orkneys took around twelve days but depended on ice conditions. On one occasion an earlier attempt to relieve the weather station with an Argentinian vessel had failed but the ex trawler succeeded in getting through. In some years she would sail to Buenos Aries to take on board expedition personnel. Dias also assisted in various expeditions to South Georgia. One of the earliest was the Kohl-Larsen Expedition of 1928/9 which took the first cinematographic film of the island. Others included the British South Georgia Expedition under the leadership of the climber George Sutton, biological work carried out by the Falkland Islands Government, the Bird Island Expedition of 1958 and topographical surveys carried out by Duncan Carse. Her use for such work over many decades must make her one of the longest serving vessels to be involved in South Atlantic expeditions.Around the time of the Kohl-Larsen expedition the then Swedish skipper, Johan Johannesson, located a forgotten harbour bay whilst on a sealing expedition to the inhospitable south west coast, Here he found the remains of an old sealing camp. The bay was subsequently named Dias Cove.

In the 1950s her steam engines were converted to burn oil instead of coal. In 1960 Pesca sold out to the British firm Albion Star and the ex-trawler returned to the British flag. In 1964/5 the whaling station of Grytviken was closed and Dias, together with the other surviving vessels Petrel and Albatross, was mothballed and laid up. A caretaker looked after them until 1970. During the 1970s, the vessels, settled in the water under the weight of accumulated winter snow.

The ex-trawler, although laid up, had an unwitting role in the start of the Falklands War. The crisis, of course, came to a head when a group of Argentinian scrap metal merchants landed on South Georgia. Amongst their agreed tasks was the cutting up of the three vessels laid up at Grytviken. Given the subsequent action around Cumberland Bay, Dias ex-Viola must be almost the only vessel to have seen action in both the Great War and the Falklands War.

In the later 1990s a plan to take the vessel to the National Fishing Heritage Centre at Grimsby was formulated. A marine survey was carried out which concluded that it was possible to return her to England and restore her to working order. It also noted that many spare parts were available in Grytviken’s engineering stores. Unfortunately this was not proceeded with" In recent years there has been concern over the leakage of fuel oil from the Dias and other vessels laid up at Grytviken. Remedial work took place in 2002/3 and over the first weeks of 2004 there was considerable activity around the vessels. A team has carried out further work to remove the oil from Dias and Albatross. At the end of January Viola/Dias was floated for the first time in years. The Dias and Albatross have since been secured in an area dug out in front of her former berth.

The history of this vessel is quite a story in itself. Viola/Dias is a unique survivor. She is probably the oldest surviving steam trawler with her steam engines still intact; a veteran of the Great War as well as a range of activities in the South Atlantic. She is truly a historic representative of Kingston upon Hull’s remarkable maritime heritage and pioneering spirit. She is also virtually the last of the North Sea fleeters.

Dr. Robb Robinson, 2005