Bridges
Surprising, some of the stories above, I had dealings with Kowloon Bridge and Tectus. Regarding Kowloon Bridge, on it's last loaded voyage prior to sinking off Ireland, she suffered extreme heavy weather damage, on the deck and aft, in way of the Emergency generator room on the lower bridge deck. The steel plate reinforced (not Watertight) doors had been stove in by a "Greenie" coming in over the Port quarter. The Theoretical loading of the suspect "Frame 67(8?)", should have meant that the ship was lost there and then!. The Deck damage was port side also, where a following sea had come aboard and damaged hatch coming support brackets on the forward five hatches, cracks were also seen in the vertical hatch combing plates.
On Tectus, the vessel, in ballast, was anchoring at Vlissingen one afternoon/evening, when the order, "Let Go Port", was given as the vessel was making about six to eight knots astern because of wind and tide, so the whole locker emptied, leaving me to fix it up in the middle of the night. As usual this was the first of about five consecutive anchor and windlass repair jobs.
It was a tragic loss, the Derbyshire, but the results of inquiries into such losses does, eventually, improve safety at sea, although, the manning scales leave a lot to be desired. Nine men on a 300.000DWT ship is not enough for safe watch-keeping and general/emergence maintenance IMHO.
When all else fails; Read the Instructions!
