Cargo Carried

[Capt Bill Davies]

I've tried for years to explain to people what "Jesus sticks " used for topping were , but to no avail.

How would you describe them Bill ?.

Evening John,
"Jesus Sticks", "Crucifix" and many more.
Ullage sticks were my favourite. Forget Whessoe guages and such. Good for approximations but I would never work out my final figures on anything otherr than the "Crucifix". Of course there were the more modern ships were these devices were redundant.
Strange the way people used to load to 4' 06" ullage except of course for the finishing tanks and the find that they could have loaded more but, too late. It is as though 4' 06" was cast in stone.
I have memories of the "Phoenix" my first command in 69. A beajutiful little ship (nostalgia) we used to finish off
'even keel' and operating in "tropical'" used to have ullages of 02' 06" (close eye on temps) and apply a 6" +ve trim correction which yielded good results. We were like a submarine.

Brgds

Bill

[John Arton]

My first trip to sea was on a crude oil tanker (66.000 tons). As a first trip cadet I was given the exicting task of using the ullage stick to shout out the ullage of the port side tanks to the duty officer who was looking after the stbd. side tanks, he would then relay the readings obtained to the Ch. Off in the control room. This was at an offshore terminal (Halul Island, dead exotic). I quickly learnt the meaning of "Jesus stick" when approaching the final ullage on one set of tanks, I got no reply from the 3rd Off who was on duty at the time. Looking over to his side of the ship, I saw himm down on his knees praying. Apparentley either through sun stroke or inhaling toomuch crude oil fumes, he had suddenly discovered religion and had abandoned his ullage stick in favour of praying to god on the deck. Fortunatley the pumpman was nearby and took over quickly, averting an overflow. Only problem was our pumpman was spanish and his english was not too good, so all I could hear over the walkie talkie was the Ch. Off bellowing , "Jesus Christ, what the f**k is going on out there". So jesus stick somehow seemed a very appropriate name in these circumstances.
Later when I was third mate on container ships with CP., we often carried animals, either to or from Canada. We always had to have a zoo keeper travel with us to look after the animals welfare. We had two Giraffe's on trip that were most unneving peering through the bridge windows at you late at night. They got terribly sea-sick and it was touch and go for a while if they would survive the trip. Fortunatley the weather calmed down and they recovered and were delivered safely to Canada.
The other unusual cargo we carried when I was a cadet on CP's North Atlantic cargo ships was money, which was always carried in the freezer chambers for some strange reason.
It was all printed by De La Rue in the U.K. and the shipped out in boxes to Canada. Apparently it was pretty useless as some mark that required the Master plate was missing and was only added once the money had reached Canada's central Bank. One trip I was talking to the De La Rue man and asked if it was Canadian dollars again but he sid no, they were travellers cheques. I asked him what was missing from them to make them uselss and he told me nothing, they were ready to be used, all 7 milion dollars worth!! Apparentley all the dockers in the gang loading that hold (it was the only gang working us that day) were met. police to provide security. When got to canada and were getting ready to discharge them, that day the whole pier was covered in armed Brinks Mats security and no other vessel was allowed to be worked. Myself and the third mate were tasked with opening the freezer doors and dragging the boxes of travellers checks out into the open hold for discharging, which we dsuly did. On getting them out into the hold we looked around for the Brinks Mats guys to take charge of them and they were no where to bee seen as it was their coffee break time and they were all at the chow wagon. We were left twiddling our thumbs sitting on top of all this money until they had had their coffee break. Often wonder what would have happened if we had helped ourselves to some of them, the travellers cheques, not the freezer contents.

regards
Capt. John Arton

[happy daze john in oz]

I sailed with Clan Line /Union Castle in the early 70`s as a Deck Cadet & 3rd Officer (unc). We carried a varied cargo on most trips to and from Southern Africa and there about.
Of the more unusual were 15 White Rhino from Durban to London. These were loaded in individual wooden crates, on deck, forward of the bridge. With them came 2 SA Game keepers to administer injections and clean them out etc. We arrived in the Thames to a long running Dockers strike, anchored off Southend Pier and unloaded the Rhino into barges. Did a crew change at the end of the pier and set off to Nordenham in Germany to discharge the rest of the cargo.
On a smaller scale, each homeward run on the Windsor Castle had a few drums of frogs, used in an early form of pregnancy testing. I was one of the 3rd mates jobs the check these heaving drums of water each day to remove the prematurely dead amphibians and dispatch the over the side. While on the Windsor, we did of course carry Gold Bullion from Durban to Southampton, I counted them all in and then all out again; the counting out always seemed to be done with a hangover.
Another animal oddity, on the Southampton Castle this time, we took 12 lions from Southampton to Cape Town. These were English breed lions from circuses, being taken to improve the breeding stock in the Cape.

G'day Mike, when were you on the Windsor, I did a few on her some as officers steward.

[Mike Line]

G`day John,

I was only on the Windsor for 6 round trips, 1974 > 1975. I remember one early morning, prior to the 8-12 watch. The steward came in with my wake up cup of tea, but I failed to drink it before he returned, stating, " if you don’t get out of your pit now, I`m getting in" there may have been a couple of unprintable words used, but let’s say I believed him. Even in my tender state, I moved rapidly, arriving on the bridge just before the Commodore, followed by the steward with a mug of strong coffee.
It was a great time, lots of interesting passengers of the female variety, strange how the stewards never saw them arrive or depart the junior officer`s cabins!

[Capt Bill Davies]

John,
Looking back to those days when one rushed from ullage port to ullage port on topping off with the Ullage/Jesus/Crucifix stick over ones shoulder we must have looked like something out of the Bible. Easy to see where the expression came from.

So you loaded at Halul? Can’t decide which CBM port I disliked the most Halul or Jebel Dhanna. Jebel Dhanna was set up in the early 70s. It was a real test for any ship as those pilots certainly threw the vessels around. Shell made a decision following losing ( and recovering) many Stbd anchors in JD that they would no longer make the inboard link secure to the Chain locker bulkhead with a kenter. They used lashing wire. The recovery cost of the Stbd anchor when lost through berthing was bad enough (Dirhams 60K) but nothing compared to the damage incurred to the locker itself when the chain was secured with kenter. The secret was getting the speed down to less than 2/2.5kts. Memories of a 4/5 hours berthing mid afternoon in August….nightmare.

Brgds

Bill

[John Cassels]

G`day John,

I was only on the Windsor for 6 round trips, 1974 > 1975. I remember one early morning, prior to the 8-12 watch. The steward came in with my wake up cup of tea, but I failed to drink it before he returned, stating, " if you don’t get out of your pit now, I`m getting in" there may have been a couple of unprintable words used, but let’s say I believed him. Even in my tender state, I moved rapidly, arriving on the bridge just before the Commodore, followed by the steward with a mug of strong coffee.
It was a great time, lots of interesting passengers of the female variety, strange how the stewards never saw them arrive or depart the junior officer`s cabins!

Mike , never sailed on passenger ships but heard many stories like you mention above
Was it really so fantastic or was there always "a price to pay " at the end of the trip ?.

[Mike Line]

Hi John & John,
In reply, to both your replies. The Rhino`s are probably the easiest, as I don’t know, although the dates would fit. Our 15 went to the Chipperfields in the main for the now defunct Windsor Safari Park (Now Lego Land), their descendants can be found in various zoo`s /wildlife parks around the country. We had hoped that the live cargo would get us a quick entry to London during the strike, but no. We did get one of Giles cartoons in the Daily Express, showing the Rhinos running amok.
The main problem was on the SA coast, I must be careful here; some South African would get very brave, leave the safety of the veldt and go up the coast on the Big Boat. Their daughters were not used to the fast talking, smooth sophistication of the Champagne Cocktail wielding Officers. They fell into our trap. All was well until the next trip, when they could be waiting on the dockside, with Daddy, not looking quite as slim as before. Or a UK bound diplomats daughter joined the ship in Durban and was a better option for the whole return voyage than the farmer’s girl for another 4 days. Arrival in the UK was normally saved by them leaving the ship while we counted the gold, or what happens at sea stays at sea. Not all were young (all were legal) some were more mature and generous. That`s enough. Happy days, oh yes. Guilt, no.

[happy daze john in oz]

G`day John,

I was only on the Windsor for 6 round trips, 1974 > 1975. I remember one early morning, prior to the 8-12 watch. The steward came in with my wake up cup of tea, but I failed to drink it before he returned, stating, " if you don’t get out of your pit now, I`m getting in" there may have been a couple of unprintable words used, but let’s say I believed him. Even in my tender state, I moved rapidly, arriving on the bridge just before the Commodore, followed by the steward with a mug of strong coffee.
It was a great time, lots of interesting passengers of the female variety, strange how the stewards never saw them arrive or depart the junior officer`s cabins!

Thanks Mike, I was on her from voyage three onwords for about three years. The officers steward in charge was one of them but not as forward as that one. Great ship with some fantastic crew including officers.

[happy daze john in oz]

Mike , never sailed on passenger ships but heard many stories like you mention above
Was it really so fantastic or was there always "a price to pay " at the end of the trip ?.

John you certainly missed out on some good times. The 'Brandy coast' as it was known was a place of wonder for many. As for the bloods, well I know of many an officer who had 'company' over night, sadly oine a Rhodesian engineer got caught and wasa charged with interfering with ships cargo. I am sure she was pleased to be refered to as cargo. But there was many a female who had high hopes of snaring an officer for good.
But this enginer wa sa bit of an oddity. There was always an odd smell in his cabin, we disovered one day what it was. He had a tin filled with USED condoms.

[Capt Bill Davies]

Any of the membership sailed in self discharger bulk carriers. I understand that a Norwegian operator has a substantial fleet of this type of vessel albeit small coastal . OBOs have been well discussed but I have to say that for sheer hard work these vessels took the cake. I was in two, The 'Phosphore Conveyor' (PC) and 'Marcona Conveyor' (MC). The PC was was difficult and built with the same cross section as a conventional Panamax except she had a conveyor belt in the Duct Keel. This conveyor belt was tunnelled up through the engine room between two 16 cyl Pielsticks and thence out to the discharge gantry. Pielsticks are not the Engineers favourite and the continuous dust/dirt in the ER did not help matters. The MC was better in that the cargo flowed on to the belt due hold construction. The PC by being a standard Panamax cross section needed Bulldozers to push the cargo through the trap doors onto the belt. Hard Work.