In 1970 Canadian Pacific, with the advent of containeristaion, decided to convert and lenghten the Beaveroak (nice general cargo ship) into a fully cellur container ship. Lengthening her would increse her container capacity to around 350 t.eu.'s ( I know tiny by todays but this was just the begginning of the container era). This would enable CP to start a full container service from the U.K. to Quebec with a decent container ship, whilst they waited for Cammell Lairds to deliver the three brand new 750 T.E.U. ships they had ordered from them (another disaster, who would even dream of building anything in Cammell Lairds in the eraly 70's, must have got a cheap deal). In their wisdom CP chose a small ship yard in Holland in a village called Bolnes some 15 mile past Rotterdam and this was the biggest job they had ever undertaken.
All started off well, the new 20 mtr section ws built off site whilst the yard got on with new hatch covers, building a new fuel tank in what was going to be the aftermost hold, modifications to pipe work,etc. etc.
A floating dock was hired and the ship cut in half, bow section floated out, new section floated in, lined up, bow section floated back in, lined up and the odd weld made to hold the bits together whilst the dock was pumped dry, which started off o.k. but afet a while someone noticed that the bow section had moved and was no longer lined up correctly. Dock pumped out, bow section lined up again, dock pumped dry and eventually all sections mated up and welded together (very slight kink in the joint of the bow section but hey, thats hardly noticable.
After that there came the fitting of around 1000 tonnes of permament concrete ballas ton to the tank top of the midship section, so beautiful shuttering was built on the port and stbd sides to eactly replicated the size of two 40 ft containers and holes cut in the ships side in order to pour the concrete in.
Came the day and the yard informed us that tomorrow they had hired enough concrete delivery trucks for 500 tonnes of concrete which they would pour into the port side shuttering (she being port side alongside) and that the next day, after turning the ship around they would do the same on the stbd. side. We did try and point out to them the flaw in this plan but, being Dutch, they knew what they were doing and they were not going to take any advice from mad Englishmen.
Came the day and the road outside the yard was chocker block with concrete lorries all lined up ready to deliver there loads, which were duly poured into the port side shuttering through holes cut in the ship side. Came the end of the day and it was all completed, lovely smooth concrete in the shuttering but strangely she had rather an alarming list to port, well so would you if you had 500 tonnes dumped into your port side. No problems said the Dutch, she will be upright by the end of tomorrow when we put the other 500 tonnes in her.
Next day came, 500 tonnes poured into the stbd side and hey presto ship upright. There you are said the Dutch, told you so. It almost broke our hearts to have to point out to them that the port side concrete had something approaching a 20 deg slope on its surface, had set quite hard and had meant to be the perfect shape and size of 2 40ft containers in order that we could stow containers on top of it.
Much red Dutch faces and frantic hiring of jack hammers resulted in days been spent removing the slope and rebuilding it so it was nice and rectangular and smooth.
Meanwhile work proceeded apace fitting cell guides, hatch covers etc. One day tmyself and the scond mate was down in the hatch where the permament ballast was with a shipyard manager who was proudly showing off the finished results. The 2nd mate was musing as to what would happen to any rain water that came into the hatch when we were working cargo as container ships were not affected by a bit of rain, work carried on regardless. Silly man said the Dutch, "you pump any water out via the bilges where the rain runs into", "and where would these bilges be" asked the 2nd Mate", "Over there in the after corners" said Dutchman pointing, "Oh, that would be underneath all that concrete the, would it" says 2nd Mate. More red faces, more jack hammers used to reveal bilge wells and creat tunnels for water to run through into them.
Time goes on, getting near departure date when someone suddenly realises that with new regs. coming into force they had forgetten to install the foo-foo plant. Frantic cutting, burning, welding and new foo-foo plant installed.
All work now completed and only final painting to be done, ships crew all on board except no Captain.A most annoyed Capt. eventually turned up days before we were due to sail. He was standing by the first of the new buildings in Cammell Lairds at the time and was terrified he would lose it to his biggest rival.
Its raining but hey get the damm hatch covers painted we have aschedule to keep. Slap a coat of paint on, sail down to Rotterdam (it will dry on the way) and start loading. In Rotterdam there were a number of angry dockers who discovered there nice boots covered in green paint.whoops. Anyway off we go for Quebec with the Captain extolling container services to the pilot. Ships run on a tight schedule, 1st time he can book a holiday knowing he will be home on time, blah de blah. Drop pilot off at the Hook, "bye says the captain, see you in X number of days, hours minutes", three hours later C/Eng informs Capt. he will have to return to port as serious problems with main engine. Very red faced Capt. greets same pilot who took us out back on board when he boards to take us back in, who is tapping his watch and commenting that time seems to fly thiese days. "Teething problems, always get them after such a big job (cock-up)" says the Capatin.
So began CP's full cellur container service from the UK/Continent to Canada, not a very good start and it ended up with us having to abandon the poor old girl some years later when the engine room flooded in a storm off the Grand Banks.

rgds
Capt. John Arton (ret'd)