Memories.. Apart from shipyards ... Japan

[j.sabourn]

In the late Sixties and early seventies I was employed on a couple of ships carrying steel cargoes for the Eastern States and up the lakes to Chicago and Detroit with mainly hot rolled steel coils for the car industry , won’t go into the differences between hot rolled and cold rolled just suffice to say that the hot rolled were already mostly cut to size and any crimping of the edges was severely frowned on , and this could happen through bad stowage and securing. The Japanese are the same as any other business man and there to please their customers , and at the end of stowing 30,000 tons of steel products about 12 hours were spent securing by shore gangs. I was usually invited by the port captain or some other erstwhile individual to celebrate and this is how I became familiar with the Japanese only bars with the red light ouside. However one had to be as smart as them, there was always a shortage of timber and lashing materials , and as I had to sign off on the securing had to keep ones wits about them. I still persisted on inspecting each hold and all the securing which 9 times out of 10 had to have further securing which I insisted on , I was much younger in those,days and made every effort to see the job done correctly. When today I read about mishaps at sea I always wonder if it could maybe be the laxity of people taking the easy way out . The dunnage alone on 30,000 tons of steel was seldom less than 600 tons and this on completion of discharge had to go ashore for incineration , never mind all those 4 x 4 s for tomming off , this is apart from all the wire and bottle screws which probably finished up in a scrapyard. The Japanese would have loved to get it all back as said they were always short of materials and likely to scrimp on if could get away with it.
JS

[j.sabourn]

Ref. #1 cut out the early 70s must be getting senile , just checked the early 70s was elsewhere so was just the late 60 s. JS

[Des Taff Jenkins]

AS you say John you could have made a killing if you could have stowed all the dunnage on deck, but at around 600tons the owner would have wanted a big cut.
I remember leaving Swansea and cutting loose a sling of dunnage as we passed Three Cliffs Bay, hopping my father would be able to pick it up off the beach there, people built rough batches there out of old timber .
Des

[Keith Tindell]

Would be worth a fortune today, timber here in UK, and no doubt world wide has doubled in price at the timber yard, i can drive away from the yard with 250£ on my roof rack easily, kt

[j.sabourn]

US health regulations insisted it had to be burned . Would imagine Australian Health would of been the same. The ships I brought down from Singapore one had to be prudent on what food you bought as most was condemned on arrival Australia. I often wondered how these passenger ships got on with their catering arriving with foreign food on board, or were the restrictions lifted for them ? Good query for those in catering on visits to Australia. I know on the ships I brought down on bareboat charters here , all the meat was condemned every time. JS .

[John Arton]

Once loaded steel pipes in Panama city, Florida for discharge in the Persian gulf , Al Jubail if I remember correctly. It was the first export cargo from the pipe manufacturers so they whent to great care to ensure there was no damages to the cargo, even going to the extent of filing smooth any nicks in the pipes caused by the wire slings used in loading. If I remember correctly the pipes were around 12 inch diameter and were loaded in pairs only. The timber shoring and forming off was a work of art and used around 200 tons of high grade lumber.
On arrival at the discharge port a bunch of Filipino crane drivers using our same ships cranes that the American stevedores had taken 10 days to load the pipes, took 24 hours to complete discharge. Pipes were flying around like crazy, banging into each other and landing on the quay with a hefty thump. As Saudi is basically a desert but with, even at that time early 80's, massive construction projects were going on, I thought that the dunnage would happily snapped up for use in the construction industry, no chance. Absolutely no chance of it going ashore unless we paid a fortune for it to be discharged ashore, so it all went over the side on the ballast voyage down the south Africa to load the next cargo.
As an aside, Panama city seemed to have a lot of damaged cars driving around, loads of fender benders around. On going ashore I discovered the cause. The beach front road was lined with tourist hotels and anyone wanting to reach the beach had to cross the lines of slow moving traffic on that road. Most of those tourists seemed to be nubile female college students, clad in skimpy bikinis that caused many of the drivers to take their eyes off the road to watch said students, to such an extent that regular fender benders place.
Rgds
J.A.

[Keith Tindell]

I can remember being in Tobruk in the early 60s on an Ellerman Papayani boat, and any pieces of dunnage laying around we would sling over the side, and watch the scrap for it by various Arabs in small boats. Smoko entertainment really lol, kt

[happy daze john in oz]

Price of any sort of timber now is sky high, long before the current Ukraine situation.
Distinct shortage of so many types, hard wood, pine, even treated pine in short supply.
Causing problems for house builders who now rely on craftwood for so much of the inside requirements for such as skirting boards and architraves.
Great until it gets wet.

[Keith Adams]

Hi Keith, You are the first person I have come across who mentioned was on a merchantman in Tobruk !
I was there just once in 1957 aboard the Troopship “Oxfordshire”. There to pickup a platoon of soldiers, don’t recall their Regiment. We flag signaled for a pilot as the chart showed a lot of wrecked vessels not then cleared.
The pilot who came aboard from row boat looked like a movie pirate ! Bare feet, trouser legs tucked up just below the knee and a heavy linen, open necked shirt with billowing sleeves. Actually we thought he was just a messenger for the pilot,probably on his way. He WAS the pilot ! The old man would not have anything to do with him and ordered him off. We proceeded into port and anchored on the fringe of the larger charted wrecks.
No “Visit” arrived but about an hour later a large flat deck barge was towed out carrying the soldiers. They had hardly any gear but amazingly had their own drum and bugle band whose members were complete with their own guns, bayonets, ammo belts and water bottles. Must have carried their instruments everywhere !
Anyway, they put on quite a show approaching the ship. First time I had seen such intricate drum stick routines. Each drummer also had a bugle … wouldn’t surprise me if they were expert marksmen as well. By the time we arrived Southampton they put on quite a number of displays. Made me really proud of the Army.

[j.sabourn]

Hi Keith your mention of the Oxfordshire brought back memories of a person who used to talk about the same vessel. I havent seen him for a number of years now, but apart from shipping we also had other things in common so used to see him at various functions. His son was also seagoing and met up with him at various times also. A fluke on the chances of it happening especially here in Australia the 5 letter number on his certificate was almost identical to mine except my last number was 1 and his was 2. If his name suddenly shoots back into my memory banks will let you know just in case by a chance of fate you may of known him. Cheers JS