The Orwell Factory Whaler
Base H - Signy Island Antarctica

Photograph courtesy R. Burton

The Orwell was a whaling ship that had to be at anchor in order to process whales which was largely carried out alongside with cranes and winches hauling blubber aboard. Later factory ships with a stern slipway were devised (by Petter Sorlle as it happens, the man who named Signy after his wife) that could process whales on the open sea so freeing them up from a shore station and not having to pay for licenses from the Falkland Islands government.