I have now had a prompt reply from Mike at SES to a message I sent today via the Contact Us link on the Stormpowered website.
"The servers have been undergoing maintenance over the past several days. Make sure you’re connected to the internet when launching StormPowered, and the update process should implement the new changes. I’m sorry for the trouble this has caused, and we appreciate your continued patience while we resolve any residual issues from the server updates."
And after I had raised some issues about communication.
"Unfortunately everybody around here has been so busy with the server maintenance over the last few days that we’ve been unable to keep up with communication. There will be an update on the forums at some point today letting everybody know the situation."
Well some hope then of being back in my Dogger Bank saved game soon.
One good thing from all this-I found out about Steam and Iron and have downloaded the demo. I can see already from a brief play that it's very good, but I'm an addict for Jutland's 3D-good to have both in my case.