Hi Paul,
Yes as Bob stated they were awful seaboats to sail on, never was sea sick till I sailed on them. They would roll heavily on a flat sea and pitching well I have seen people loose their footing and fall over because when you put your foot down in a dive you felt if you was stepping into space. The RMAS removed the lifeboats very early on for stability reasons as well as a monetary saving.
They where used for mainly coastal tows, anything from small barges to large warships, exercises with warships (such as a bordex or towex trials), casualty rescues (salvage, ie large RFA's that broke down on the coast or near British waters), target tows of various kinds, control vessel for radio controlled targets, Robust in Devonport was used mainly as a harbour tug much like a dog class tug and anything else the MoD needed a hull for.
They where big white elephants that the MoD had no real use for, as Bob said when they where being built the MoD shaved 30ft of their length without investigating the effects or redesigning the hull in any way. The accommodation was bigger than designed because the SALMO's wanted them to accommodate a full diving team and operate a six fold 100t block and tackle aft for salvage(never used and first thing the RMAS ditched). The senior towing master insisted that engineers could not be accommodated on the same decks as deck officers and the engineers insisted that they are never accommodated with the dabtoes, so the bridge became an accommodation level and a funny chicken hutch was fitted on top as a bridge. Also the fire fighting monitors where fitted as a after thought by SALMO's for salvage (never used except to sink target vessels which are stubborn in sinking yes that is true). They could muster 50t bollard pull, but only for 15 minutes, then the engines overheated and the reduce revs gave 45t. They ordered the wrong type of winch to tow on, it was a basic self rendering mooring winch and did not rewind which it paid out, so the emergency procedure of spragating the winch came the norm on medium size tows up. The Rollicker was towing a Leander and overnight the winch house was left unmanned, on inspection so much wire paid out that there was barely 3 turns left on the drum.
But the vessels for all their faults did perform well at times for the MoD and that had more to do with the quality of the crews than the vessel.
Davis