Sept Illes-Halifax (blackout)-Japan

[John Arton]

Sept Illes has been mentioned a number of times on the site,
In the winter of 80/81 I was mate on a cape sized bulker and we were charted to load 120000 tons of iron ore (DRI-direct reduced iron) in Sept Illes for Japan discharge. This was just after the loss of the Derbyshire on that same run and there were numerous theories going round about the cause of the loss, one being that these iron ore pellets had moved around in the holds due to ship movement that friction had caused such heating that they had eventually raised the temperature of the cargo to such an extent that the cargo had literally burnt a hole through the ships hull, we now know better but this was a theory being banded around at the time. We enquired of this to our head office only to be told to forget it as it was only a theory and anyway we were loading ore not pellets...as if. On arrival at Sept Illes we were told that we were loading DRI as that was the ports main export to Japan. The place was covered in feet of snow and we were required to send the loading plan ashore before berthing and we were to arrive alongside with minimum ballast and all hatches open. Upon completion of loading we would then go to Halifax for bunkers and then at slow speed make for Japan via the Cape, Lombok and then Kagoshima for discharge.
Arriving alongside with the quay covered in feet of snow and with an Indian crew, it took us an age to actually get alongside due to all the mooring bollards been covered in snow and the line men having trouble with our wires (fitted with rope tails on a mandel shackle) and mooring ropes. The minute we were alongside but before we had completed mooring operations, they had started pouring the ore into us at around 15-20000 t.p.h.
There was no draft survey on arrival to ascertain the ships constant, we had given the ships constant from previous voyages when we had sent the loading plan and that was what was going to be used.
In the bitter cold and in feet of snow it was a right struggle to get all ballast out as even with minimum ballast on board they were loading us at least 5 times faster than we could discharge our ballast (no top side wing tank drop valves fitted, instead for cheapness of build the topside wing tanks and double bottoms were common).
After loading around 120000 tons we were allowed a 20 minute stop in order to read drafts and calculate the final pours into the fwd and aft holds in order to obtain the correct sailing trim.
Once this was done I sat in the freezing cold with the surveyor watch our marks until the loading was completed. We then had about 1 hour to secure and depart the berth for anchorage where final calculations would take place and papers be signed. As we came off the berth the next ship on was waiting just off the berth.
WE went to anchor, Indian crew secured all the hatches etc., I worked out the final cargo figure (122000 tons) and a couple of hours later we were off. From start to finish the whole operation took 18 hours.
On arrival in Halifax with a draft of around 45 feet we were told by the pilot that we were the biggest ship ever into Halifax, a fact borne out by the senior Halifax's pilot inability to gauge the handling of a laden bulker, ending up giving one of the channel buoys a right dinging when he misjudged a turn. WE anchored in the harbour abeam of the container berth and took bunkers. When it was time to leave I had terrible trouble getting the anchor up with the captain and pilot using helm and engine to attempt to relieve the strain on the anchor cable. We were tooing and froing to such an extent that all of a sudden, looking up, I suddenly realised we were dangerously close to a container ship on the berth which they were unaware of on the bridge. Frantic shouts and some hasty ahead movements got us clear and eventually I got the anchor up but despite having anchored in the designated area, found we had not only a number of old anchor cables wrapped around our anchor, we also had what looked suspiciously like a power cable wrapped around it also. Despite a number of attempts to free all this mess it proved impossible to so we went back to anchor (in a different area), re-anchored and got a work boat out with oxy acetylene cutting gear to come out and cut it all free. The crew on the work boat were also suspicious of what looked like a power cable caught up in the flukes but after checking with the harbour master we were assured there had been no live power cables in the area where we had first anchored. By this time it was getting dark and the work boat crew started cutting through the dredged up anchor cables. The last to cleared was the suspicious looking cable and as soon as this was cut through and its cut ends dropped into the harbour there was an almighty flash and a bang and a whole section of a residential area of Halifax went dark....oops.
With the pilot already on board we made a hasty departure as is possible on a fully laden bulker whose maximum sea speed was only 14 knots.
It was not till about a week after we had arrived in Sept Illes that all the snow and ice on deck melted away and the Indian crew managed to shed all those extra pounds of clothing they had donned against the cold.
If I recall correctly it took some 45 days to reach Japan.
rgds
JA

[Evan Lewis]

That was an Experience and a Half.
Was there ever any feed-back ,from the Port -Authorities. Regarding the dangers ,obtaining?

[j.sabourn]

Sept Isles was always hard to load in the sense of the ballast being the biggest problem as literally had to be out before commencing to load. In Murmansk loading ore there in the winter time, the biggest problem re ballast was that any partial pumped out wing tank had the tendendcy to freeze solid. No good saying the chippy or handyman should have measured the drop on his sounding line, you try and look for a damp patch on a small line in a raging snow blizzard. Also on loading the Russkis would sometimes put a water hose down the hold and all the arguments against this practice to no avail. They insisted that as per charter party the ore was allowed a certain water content and would not be put off. If these cargoes had ever been weighed coming out there would have been big discrepancies, more that likely they lay stock piled on a quay in Cardiff or somewhere. Previous to 1970 some ship was lost with I believe a cargo of Nichol concentrates, we had thereafter to drop thermometers down to check temperatures. Apparently the water content in this type of cargo came to the surface rather than down to the bilges, and in the case of the lost ship it was assumed the free surface affect was the cause of this loss. They still to this day put out MN notices to this effect. This was loading in the port of Esperance W.A. Cheers JS

[John Arton]

Evan
re your #2
As we skipped port tout suite when the lights went out, never heard of any problems but I guess with the Harbour Master assuring us there were no live power cables in the area we had a good defence.
J.S. #3
Nickel ore concentrate is the subject of many MGN's regarding the dangers of liquidfication with the surface of the ore turning into a slurry. This applies especially from ore shipped from the likes of Indonesia and in the past few years there have been a number of ships lost due to this cargo.
If you search the North of England P and I club site there is a mass of info. on the subject.
I loaded 500 tons of Nickel briquettes in Nonoc Island in the Philippines ( each barrel came with 10 pieces of paper that had to be signed individually) and the value of that cargo amounted to some 7 million dollars.
We then went to Sulawesi and loaded a couple of thousand tons of Nickel shot (molten nickel drop down through cooling tower in water spray, end product looks like those jumping jacks we had as kids). We also loaded copper ingots in Butterworth. The rest of the load including deck cargo was Indonesian and Philippines timber and plywood. Discharge was Nantes, Newport and Antwerp. In Antwerp the copper was discharged into barges and one of the barge skippers helped himself to a couple of ingots. We had police and customs on board accusing us of cargo theft and they searched the ship but found nothing but when I told them the copper had been discharged to barges they dashed off and captured the barge skipper loading the stolen ingots into his car for sale to the scrap men.
Nickel at that time was £9000 per ton and after discharge we had around 2 tons of nickel shot sweepings in barrels. Thought I was going to make a killing with selling it for scrap but no one would take it as nickel use was only in very specialised markets such as nickel steel and coinage.
Bugger!!!!
I had joined the ship (a 5 hatch geared bulk carrier) as Mate in Istanbul where it had come out oof a Russian Black sea port after discharging Argentinian grain. It was ballast to the Philippines to load Nickel and plywood and then round loads of Indonesian Islands loading sawn timber along with Malaysia for the copper. After discharge in Europe it was across the oggin to the Panama City in Florida (great place, lots of American college girls in skimpy bikinis) to load steel pipe for the Persian Gulf then down to Port Elizabeth and Richards bay to load some sort of ore for discharge in Dunkirk and a port in Denmark. 6 month trip in all.
Rgds
JA
rgds
JA