A Short Run Job - part two
by Published on 26th March 2025 11:17 AM
The plan was to raise anchor at around 08.00hrs the following morning, and move to a spare berth near Sembawang that had been allotted to the vessel. We decided to stick to ‘sea watches’ and maintain stand-by till 08.00hrs the following morning. After handing the watch over to the 3rd engineer I decided to sleep on my day bed in case I was needed in a hurry.
At around 02.45hrs I was jolted awake by the slamming of watertight doors, loud screams and shouts with many and varied odd curses thrown in for good measure. I got up and opened the cabin door, and saw several of the deck crew running up and down the engineers’ alley way, screaming “Have you seen him, have you seen him”?? They were looking into and checking each
cabin as they did so. A couple of them, in preparation for the 3 days in Singapore, had started to ‘party hard’ a tad early and seemed to only have a very vague idea as to what was going on. Two of the gentleman carried golf clubs, which puzzled me somewhat!! By this time of course everyone was awake and firing on all 8 cylinders. The word ‘Pirates’ was mentioned several times! The Cook who just happened to be a Black Belt was nowhere to be seen.
Going out on deck I caught a glimpse of two men running at full speed along the starboard side and without breaking stride, jumped over the rails into the dark waters of Singapore Roads. A few moments later several police Patrol Boats, sirens wailing, appeared out the darkness their searchlights looking for a target. A helicopter swept overhead and buzzed the area as well with search lights blazing. Needless to say, whatever they were looking for was either non-existent or had vanished into thin air, because nothing or no one was ever found. Finally several important looking gentlemen then came aboard and interviewed The Captain, Mate, Chief Engineer and some of the other lads. The story goes that all these fine gentlemen retired to the ‘old mans’ cabin to discuss this fiasco in detail over a cup of tea at 03.10hrs.
Over the next few hours several stories circulated about the fiasco, each very different to the other as can be expected. I will relate what I heard from the more reliable ‘source’ the Chief Cook. This particular gentleman was, according to himself, a Black Belt Karate expert. His story of what took place is somewhat fuzzy but believable. Six or seven ‘Pirates’ with theft in mind, had climbed silently aboard after the vessel had finally anchored. These were your ‘standard’ pirates, not the ones that wore a black eye patch and sported a parrot on the left shoulder. Whilst telling his story of the events, he kept pausing, interjecting that the ‘Pirates’ were awfully lucky that they had not bumped into him whilst onboard. His theory was that the said Pirates knew that the ship was on a run-job, and that there were several bars of copper, brass and stainless steel in the engine room store/workshop, some of them were up to 9” in diameter and up to 6ft long, and that is what they were really after. Although he did seem bit uncertain as to why someone in their right mind would jump off a ship at 03.00 hrs carrying a 100kg piece of copper bar.
A second take on the events as recorded by the Chippy seemed a bit more plausible. A lot of people knew (both on and off the grape vine) ’that this was a ‘run-job’ and that the crew would be paid off in cash when signing off at Singapore. This money ostensibly had/was being carried aboard the ship from Australia. I have absolutely no idea what figures in dollars it involved. When the pirates were aboard, they went from cabin to cabin demanding to know where the money was. Getting no joy out of the crew, they then proceeded to get physical with a few of them. Someone raised the alarm and set the events which followed into train.
The next day the local papers were filled with the news of the attempted robbery. This was picked up by the Australian Government, they then demanded an explanation from the powers-that-be in Singapore. It was, I believe also on TV in Australia as well. By the time we were tied up at the berth allotted us the affair had become but a dim memory-- nothing focuses the mind so acutely as having 3 days (and nights!) in Singapore with money to burn!
Michael Smith
