Commercial contracts as an escort reserve

Could the Navy encourage trawlers and leisure craft that it could arm and requisition as convoy escorts?

Yes; building the wartime call-up into commercial contracts is a practical way to create a useful reserve of vessels and crews.

The proposal applies a familiar wartime principle before the emergency begins: build and operate civilian vessels under terms that make later naval use easier. Contracts for trawlers, speedboats, and other useful craft could state the conditions under which the Navy would requisition and arm them. Britain's armed merchant cruisers illustrate how commercial hulls could enter naval service when war began. Peacetime owners would still receive useful vessels, while the Navy would know which hulls and crews could be called up. This creates an organised escort reserve without treating every merchant or leisure craft as an active warship.