Radio Caroline sails north

On the evening of Thursday 2nd July 1964 Ronan O'Rahilly of Radio Caroline and Allan Crawford of Radio Atlanta announced that their two stations were to merge (see note below). The press release is here. Radio Atlanta was to be renamed Caroline South and the Fredericia, the original Caroline ship, would leave the Essex coast and sail round the country to a new anchorage off the Isle Of Man. This would enable Caroline to offer national coverage.
 
Tom Lodge was on Caroline at the time. You can read his memories of the day here. He chose to stay on board and head north. Joining him was fellow DJ Jerry Leighton. In those days the disc-jockeys did not play their own records. That duty was taken care of by studio technicians. We know of two who were on the voyage - Alan ‘Neddy’ Turner and someone just referred to as “Terry”. Can anyone provide his surname?
 
Simon Dee decided not to make the journey. He chose to swap ships and to join some of the former Radio Atlanta personnel who were to host the programmes of the new Caroline South.
 
At 12.30am on Saturday 4th July the engine was started, the anchor was raised and the Fredericia began her historic journey. At that stage the disc-jockeys had not been told the ship's eventual destination.

Saturday 4th July 1964

We have pieced the programme schedule together from surviving recordings. Assuming it was the same on each day of the journey, the daytime output ran like this:

9.27am Tom Lodge welcoming new listeners as the ship sails along the south coast, passing St.Leonards (duration 2 minutes 12 seconds)

11.05am Jerry Leighton spinning a request, brought out by speedboat, as the ship passes the Seven Sisters and Newhaven (duration 4 minutes 11 seconds)

Saturday's Big Line Up featured a run down of the new Top 50. Fortunately, as he mentions in his account, Tom had made sure the box containing the chart had stayed on board, despite a disagreement with Simon Dee who wanted to take it with him to the other ship.

4.47pm Sailing past the Isle of Wight and Neddy announces that the station has travelled 166 miles. Captain Hangerfeld gives details of the ship's timetable and reveals the ultimate destination (duration 3 minutes 45 seconds)

Foreign interference on 199 metres meant that there was no point in Caroline broadcasting between 9pm and midnight. The station returned to the air at 12.05am with a programme until 3am but we don't have any recordings of it. We believe it was presented by Alan Turner. Then, after a three hour break, the music resumed at 6am with Tom Lodge.

Sunday 5th July 1964

8am Tom Lodge on The Early Show as the ship sails along the south coast of Cornwall (duration 1 minute 45 seconds)

2 pm Jerry Leighton on Sunday afternoon's Soundtrack programme. Apologies for the poor reception (duration 1 minute 52 seconds)

Monday 6th July 1964

10.30am Jerry Leighton acknowledges the cars flashing their headlights at the ship from the Welsh coast (duration 24 seconds)

Monday afternoon and the ship arrives at the Isle of Man. The first voice is The Captain's. Tom Lodge ends Music Around Lunchtime and then Jerry Leighton is on the Soundtrack programme when the ship reaches the final destination. Apologies for the interference (duration 4 minute 56 seconds)

As you can hear from Jerry Leighton's announcement, the ship dropped anchor in Ramsey Bay, Isle Of Man, at 3.32pm on Monday 6th July 1964. This anchorage was home to the Fredericia until March 1968.

NOTE: Although the newspapers reported that the two stations had merged, this was not strictly accurate. A deal had been done. Project Atlanta, the company behind the station of that name, had run up considerable debts. Planet Productions, the company behind Caroline, took over these debts in return for a share of the southern ship's future profits. A jointly owned sales company was set up to sell airtime for both stations. But the two ships, for the moment, remained in the hands of their original owners. It was not until the end of 1965 that Caroline's backers finally bought out Project Atlanta.