Not victory etc but modern day.
In 1977 I was sent to Copenhagen as 2nd mate to stand by a new built B&W panamax bulker.
The yard offered any buyer a complete package, hull, engine, navigation equipment , radio station etc.etc.
The idea being that within hours of the official handover you sailed off into the sunset but if the owner wanted to have any different equipment to the ones the builders supplied, then those equipment suppliers could only have access to the spaces required for their equipment only after the yard had completely finished with all the spaces on board. The yards outfit even went as far as providing bedding, cutlery etc.
We joined in January, bleddy cold and snowing so daily we would get the ferry from near our hotel to the yard.
Now C.P used at the time, Raytheon for their radio stations which was not what the yard supplied so up till about a week before handover the ship had no radio station. Raytheon had a bunch of fitters working flat out installing all the radio gear and radars but by the time for handover had only got radars, VHF installed with the main radio station (mf/hf) only partly completed. As 2nd mate I managed to get all the world wide folio's of charts and publications on board before handover and had got started on corrections as well as planning and calculating the forthcoming voyage to Brazil.
On the dock were two 40 foot containers stuffed full of the companies gear, paint, painting equipment, bosun's store stuff, engine room tools etc. galley stores, slop chest and bond plus provisions. We were not allowed to start unloading the containers untill 24 hrs before handover which was virtually. Impossible to complete so the company had to pay for a day's extra quayage in order that we could get everything onboard but without the use of a shore crane. Fortunately the ship was built with a split accommodation block and funnel block in which were all the major store rooms for deck and engine room with access into the accomodation block and galley stores and freezers.
As it was winter the deck and hatch covers had not been painted so on sailing we had more Dane's onboard than Brits. Painters, guarantee engineer and guarantee yard manager plus the guys fitting out the radio station. By the time we reached Dover the radio station was up and running so they were landed. Once in better weather the painters set too and by the time we got to tubaro in Brazil to load iron ore for Japan everything was completed.
The accommodation and public spaces on board were to a high standard. The mate, a bit of a strange guy, decided that the wheelhouse needed a protective runner and as there were loads of conveyor belts in the terminal there would be lots of used bits lying around, as if. He also ordered lots of lovely Brazilian hardwood to build gratings for mooring ropes, most of which he used to build a greenhouse on the monkey island for his vegetable growing hobby, which didn't go down too well with the captain.
After slow steaming to Japan and discharge it was then discovered that the yard have left an opening in the double bottom between the ballast tank and the h.f.o tank, only discovered when ballasting up the double bottom and it overflowing and covering the deck and dock in oil. So it was off to drydock to clean the fuel tank and adjacent ballast tank and weld up the small perfectly circular hole between the m the yard had failed too during the build.
All in all a very eventful trip.
Rgds
J.A.
P.s. Souter hamlet also were buying exactly the same bulkers as C.P at the time.