How familiar machinery kept Flowers useful after the war

Scotch boilers and triple-expansion engines helped keep Flower-class ships in service long after the war. Their familiar machinery was inexpensive to maintain and supported by widely available parts. Sackville continued as an oceanographic vessel with one boiler after a boiler casualty, and that useful second career helped the ship survive. Other Flowers served postwar navies as widely separated as Argentina, Egypt, Ireland, Venezuela, and Thailand. The Soviet preference for larger prestige vessels is criticized here as a missed opportunity to obtain practical escorts for Arctic convoys.