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Thread: Euroliner/Eurofreighter/ Asialiner 1974/76 part 2

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    Default Euroliner/Eurofreighter/ Asialiner 1974/76 part 2

    Some more stories.

    1976 was the American bi-centennial and there were flags everywhere, in the States, instead off the stars in the flag they had a big ‘76’. We came off the ship in Weehawken, near New York, and were in one of the local bars having a few beers. At the end of the night on the way back to the ship, a little worse for wear, we saw a flag pole with a big flag on and thought that would look nice in the bar on the ship. So we acquired the flag and flag pole it was about ten foot long. As we were walking along the road heading to the docks a police car stopped, the cop got out on the other side of the car to us crouched behind the car and pulled his gun and told us all to drop the flag and put our hands in the air.

    He then proceeded to question us about where we obtained the flag, of course we were all so pissed we had no idea so we sat in the back of the car as the cop drove round trying to find where we had picked it up. We never found the original location. He called his headquarters and said he had three drunken aliens in the car and he was bringing them in. Lucky for us they must have been busy in the cop shop that evening and the guy on the radio said not to bring us in. So the cop drove us to the dock gates and told us to get on the ship and not come back.

    All these ships had a microwave in the duty mess and there were always eggs in a fridge close by so a common snack at after a bellyful of bear was to make an omelette in the microwave it came out a cross between an omelette and scrambled eggs. We though these were great inventions. Another new piece of equipment they had was an ultrasonic cleaner in the engine room this was used for cleaning the very small filters from the engines. They were also very useful for cleaning jewellery such as rings and chains. And for cleaning the metal straps of the Seiko watches that we all bought duty free in Rotterdam. Nowadays all jewellery and metal watch straps are banned offshore don’t know about the MN though.

    The ships engines were Pratt and Whitney FT4 gas turbines and we carried a spare engine. On one trip to the States we had a problem with one of the engines and we had to fit the spare engine while underway. It was no big problem apart from the ship rolling slightly. The overhead bridge crane had been designed for engine change outs, so we removed one engine and lashed it down while we removed the spare from its cradle and fitted it, later the old engine was put in the cradle and sent ashore. It took about eight hours from start to finish. The engines were held in place with hundreds of small high tensile wire locked bolts but we had plenty of tools and compressed air socket wrenches and special pliers for refitting the lock wire. It was a fairly simple job but lots of fiddly bits with the small bolts and locking wire.

    In 1975 I paid off the Eurofreighter in New York and joined it again in Charleston ten weeks later and toured the USA and Canada, mainly by Greyhound and also by train and hitchhiking, and even made it into Mexico for a day. My adventures during this time are the subject of another story.

    The container terminal in Greenock apart from being good for crew changes there were always visitors on the rig. My mother, father, sister, brother in law and nephew all visited the ship while we were docked in Greenock.

    The Seatrain gas turbine container ships were great to work on there was plenty of opportunities to get ashore as we generally had a few nights in port in the States and Europe. The crew changes were great as Greenock is only twenty miles from Glasgow where I lived. The problem with the ships was that they were designed and built when fuel was very cheap and they ran on a fuel similar to a light diesel. They had a top speed of 26 knots but burned 200 tonnes of fuel a day. The fuel also had to be heated can’t remember the temp think it was about 16C if it went below this wax formed in the fuel which clogged the filters heating it kept the wax liquid. In the later days they tried to run on a heavier fuel (BFO) but it was not a success. They only lasted about ten years with gas turbines before being sold and re-engined with medium speed diesels. As far as I know they are still the only gas turbine cargo ships every built.

    Eurofreighter1.jpg
    Engine room and damaged engine, photos are a bit poor as they a scanned copies of old polaroid shots.

    Eurofreighter 2.jpg
    Engine control room and damaged turbine blades

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    Leaving New York, the last three photos are scans of 35mm slides

    img606.jpg
    Arriving in New York

    img611.jpg
    Euroliner alongside Seatrain Container Terminal Weehawken
    Last edited by J Gowers; 25th May 2021 at 06:35 AM.

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