Liverpool

[John Arton]

Clarke Chapman, now part of Langley Engineering Group, are still going strong. They have diversified and are big in the offshore market along with building access bridges etc.
Just type the name into Google for a run down of their work.
rgds
JA

[Peter F Chard]

I can recall loading a couple of container loads of Dulux paint at Liverpool. The paint was in 4 litre pails and was the complete range of colours produced by Dulux and also all types of paint -- high gloss enamel, semi gloss etc and was all types -- oil based, acrylic etc. As the Mate remarked -- these cans are just the right size for the analysing laboratory to find out what is in the paint and how to make it !! The paint was destined for Japan. There is also the famous yarn of a request from Japan for a set of construction drawings for a cargo ship -- the Scottish shipyard asked to supply the drawings obliged but when the Japanese yard built the vessel and launched it they found that it had a permanent list to starboard of 15 degrees !! Canny Scots !!

[j.sabourn]

The Japanese were always renown for their copying. A permanent 15 degree list sounds like something I was on once. When the first news was put out about the South Korean ferry disaster there was some comment about how if she went past 5 degrees she was in trouble, I am still trying to get my head round that one. Nothing as far as I know has been explained about her stability condition at the time, if they even printed out the relevant facts that they have , we could probably do it for them. Back to original theme, dont think copyright to some is worth following up, or maybe the japs settle out of court. Cheers John S

---------- Post added at 05:11 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:37 AM ----------

Ref. to the Japanese of years gone by.. I was on a ship called the Maratha Envoy, Built by Mitsuibishi. Usually on new buildings they nrmally have in the contract that a guarantee drydock is done after 12 months. In this case due to the Trade it was nearly 2 years before this was done. She was big for those days a 35,000 ton Deadweight vessel. Upper and lower wing tanks and double bottoms, and was classed the same as most nowadays a geared bulk carrier. However the biggest problem on her was getting the ballast out of the double bottoms and had to put her well down by the stern to get the bulk of it out. I suspected what the problem was. Regards berthingor letting go from aft the leads from the mooring winch was only able to work one rope at a time. These were my 2 biggest defects for the guarantee docking apart further lss important items. When the japs came on board they tried to ridicule my claim about de ballasting the ship, and sent a car to ship to take me ashore on the pop, Came back the following morning and ship was about 20 feet by the stern and they were still trying to get ballast out. I later opened all the manholes into the D.B/s took them down and pointd to the bare 8 inch suction and filling pipes about 6 inches off the bottom plating,andtld them they had to have bell mouths fitted with baffle plates, this was all new to them and they thought I was the second coming. As regards the mooring winch they were really baffled as would according to them ost too much money to tear out the mooring winch an redesign the whole layout of the poop deck. I took them back to my cabin got a pencil and paper and sketched two bobbins on a flat plate on top of a small tabernacle which were in line with the the two fairleads port and starboard, a relatively easy ship- construction job. Every night in that shipyard I had a chauffeur driven car at the gangway waiting to take me ashore. The engineering superintendant was doing his nut and couldnt figure out where I was getting the money for such luxuries from, said to me if I find these on our bill there will be trouble. There never was any such on the Bill, japs regardless of their so called advanced technology are very fast learners and will copy anything that is right. Cheers John S

[happy daze john in oz]

This is nothing more than a sign of the times. Sadly for many in the west the Chinese and many Asian countries have a work ethic that has seen many companies go to the wall. They may not have a better life because of this but they do see work as a way of life and work hard at it. We in the west have become lazy and complacent over the years and the smarter countries have made capital out of this.

[John Arton]

Nearly every ship I sailed on in C.P. was built in Japan and in the main they were well built. Cabin furniture was the biggest problem as it tended to be made out of cheap plywood, even chart tables were pretty flimsy construction.
The biggest problem was engine spares. Despite having B & W engines, built under licence in Japan you could only use Japanese sourced spares as they always built the engines to slightly different sizes from the original drawings, thus ensuring that not only did they build the ships but they also guaranteed a spares part industry and this including such items as pumps, purifiers etc. There was an outfit called Fuji Trading that had a huge warehouse some where near London that stocked all Japanese made spares that at least cut down the cost of freighting any spares out from Japan.
On taking over new buildings in Japan it was very difficult to get anything changed even if the design meant that for a European you either bashed your head when going through an entrance due to Europeans being taller than Japanese or you had to be a contortionist to open a cupboard door etc. We found to get any minor changes, if you said that this item would not be built/placed in that position if the ship was built in Europe but would be placed elsewhere, then on arrival at the yard the next day , hey presto the item had been changed to where you wanted it. In Stolts we had 3 Japanese built tankers that were costing a fortune in spares for engine room pumps to such an extent they were all ripped out and replaced with European ones which meant that all the flanges on the associated pipe work had to be altered as the bolt holes were Jap standard dimensions which altered slightly from European ones.
The 3 container ships C.P. built in Lairds were a bit of a disaster. Vibration was terrible making it almost impossible to write up log books neatly when at sea, this due to harmonic vibrations being set up in the steering flat and transmitting throughout the accommodation. Due to industrial unrest they were so late that one of them actually got towed out in the middle of the night and taken to Cork to be finished off where innumerable faults were found in things such as pipe work etc.
C.P. somehow became involved in Lairds at this point with a fellow called Graham Day coming over from the CPR in Canada and becoming M.D. with the brief to sort out the problems there. He later went on to become chairman of British Shipbuilding.
rgds
JA

[j.sabourn]

What more can you say for copying, when they reckon the Japanese Imperial Navy was modelled on the British. JS

[Ivan Cloherty]

What more can you say for copying, when they reckon the Japanese Imperial Navy was modelled on the British. JS

The attack on Pearl Harbour was modelled on the attack on Taranto by RN Fleet Air Arm torpedo planes when it sunk the Italian fleet in Harbour

[Ron Kendall]

The Japanese had a submarine built byVickers at Barrow many moons ago, they sent cargo ship, cut a hole inher side, flooded her, an floated the sub inside, the then patched up the hull, and off she went. needless to say, all the Japanese subs after that one, were made in Japan. I believe hey did the same wit Caterpillar bulldozers!

[John Pruden]

grundig made colour televisions till japan got a few?jp

[John Arton]

John S
In the Japan/Russian war at the turn of the century, the battleships on both sides had mainly been built on the Tyne, with one yard supplying the Japanese and another the Russian fleet.
The saying goes that the workers used to keep a board going in the pubs as to which yard sunk the most of the other yards ships.
rgds
JA