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[j.sabourn]

Going back to deck camber, didnt it have to be 1/40 of the vessels beam. Thats why Cappy was always falling over, thought he had one leg longer than the other. Maybe he sawed half an inch off Marys so she could walk straight. Cappy depending on whether going forward or aft, you should have left one of your seaboots off. Cheers John S

[j.sabourn]

Car Decks were wooden planks. The uprights were steel and permanent. In fact the whole lot was considered permanent. I had to draw up plan in Germany for same. However was new wood employed and wood expanded after I left and the next mate had to go round sawing the ends off the planking whenever any of it started touching the shell plating. Had to have big forced draught extractor fans fitted inside the vents as was considered a drive on drive off with having still fuel in the cars tanks. She was also geared so cars were loaded /Discharged by ships derricks. Used to carry 600 motor cars maybe more at a push. All secured by spanish windlasses, the old fashioned way. Cheers JS

[j.sabourn]

John A.... Just noticed in one of your posts were querying the drying out time of Topside ballast wing tanks. With the access hatches open and manhole plates (feeders) off a couple of hours of fine weather and usually dried out. As regards clean ballast this was in the days before too much emphasis laid on, like best butter after the war. Usually in any case washed out with hose if necessary, but there again depending what sort of area you were in, not like off Bombay or somewhere just used common sense. As regards the US and Canadian Grain Authorities re proving the ship could sustain a mininum positive GM of believe 8 inches or something after allowing for free surface effect, this was in the days of any assistance re computers and even before calculators was all info. taken from stability book, which also had to be sighted by the grain Inspector and the book had to be stamped as approved by the BOT or MOT or whatever authority it was. Your actual main hold feeders had to hold a percentage of the lower hold capacity which was I beleive somethng like 5 percent. So also when you had to construct your own feeders had to make sure you built for the right capacity. In a bulker your hatch coaming was your main feeder and was always well above the mininum requirements. The main thing in satisfying the grain inspector re. stability was the ship filling out, which was ok with the lighter grains. If it didnt you had to build bulkheads in the tween decks to cut back on the cubic air space. On a bulker you couldnt do this and had to go to the expense of employing shore labour for bagging the grain in the loose hold to sometimes as much as 6 high. However you had every excuse in the world for employing shore labour as had no choice. Usually however with a bit of shifty and nippy work could if loading different types of grain with different stowage factors work out a stowage plan to suit all. The upper wing tanks could also be used in this case not as feeder but as cargo carrying to separate different grain types if necessary. A bulker had many uses and methods and was not too hard to work out compared with a regular cargo ship. There was also not mentioned the fitting of shifting boards in the lower hold which had to extend 1/3 from the tween decks down. All this is unnecessary in a bulker. Cheers John S