Hi Len.
Only as a matter of interest , The Jelicoe Rose was owned by Hughes Holden & co . my grandfather Capt T O Jones was skipper of her when he died in !935. My oldest ship was the MV Petertown of 1938
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Still think this forum should be "How old was the ship when you joined her"
Because logically if you joined a ship in 1950 and she was built in 1945 she wouldn't have been an 'Old Ship' then, but would be considered old now
I joined the s.t. "Swanland" in 1951 and she was built in 1914 so she was the oldest ship I joined, she already having seen 37 years of service. She was a lucky little ship having survived two world wars but was scrapped in 1954.
My second trip to sea was on ths ss Dagenham owned by the Hudson ss Company. She was coal fired. The stokers were
I think from originally Yemen but were all resident in South Shields having married and were well integrated locally.
The main route she sailed was from Tyne to London (most often discharge port Dagenham). We were at sea in the very
bad storm at beginning of 1953 and took quite a pasting. She was very soundly built and we came through it well
Quote:- " Still think this forum should be "How old was the ship when you joined her"
OK, linking this back to my early post on this thread, that ship would have been 57 years old when I stepped aboard in 1953.
So there-in lies a story, was she your first ship, what didn't she have compared to your next ship, assuming that you didn't join all ships of the same vintage, was it a shock to the system if you had been on more modern ships previously.
And can anyone beat 57 years when they joined their vessel, I'm already 20 years short of that
Ivan
The oldest ship I sailed on was a wooden one.Dont know how old it actually was but it was a real hard ship.
the problem was that it was full of animals.There seemed to be 2 of everything and the daily grind of removing the results of their bodily functions fell to the deck dept.Of course there were only two of us and the other crew member said she wasnt going to clear away crxp for anyone.
It was a happy day when we landed up on top of this mountain although there were no taxis available to get us home.
Altogether a disasterous trip.God knows what happened to the animals after I left.I took one of the cats
john sutton
Further info ,Iain.
s.s.DAGENHAM (O.N.143424)2,178 grt-Completed 20/9/1919 by Osbourne Graham,North Hylton ,Sunderland for Hudson S.S.Co,London.
(Hudson would seem to have been a subsidiary of 'Samuel Williams and Sons Limited' of London, tug & collier owners.)
The shipbuilder Osbourne Graham was in existence from 1871 to 1925.
Her Keel was Laid Down 8/1918 as WAR NESS for British Govm‘t ] - 56 Sold ,renamed NIKITAS K. by Greek interests,Panama flag .
foundered in Black Sea off N Turkey 29.11.57 [Stratoni-Braila, cargo of pyrites] All 6 crew lost.Vessel was therefore 38 years old by that time.
She had two sisters,HORNCHURCH and UPMINSTER-although I should really say three,because there were 2 called Hornchurch ! Why?…well.the first one built in 1916 was torpedoed after only 11 months in position 3.5nm ENE Coquet Is 3.8.17 (London to Methil with coal.2 crew lost.)
The second Hornchurch was built in 1919(keel being laid down as WAR BROWNEY-but all were to the same dimensions/tonnage as each other.)This second Hornchurch was aircraft bombed in the Second World War in 7/40 ,NE of Felixstowe.
Attachment 11442 (Picture courtesy of Stan Mayes on Ship's Nostalgia site)Gulliver
Raymond - what year were you on the Port Dunedin? I did a trip on her London NZ London 9 May 1950/8 October>Here is a photo i took of her in Littelton Harbour, the port for Christchurch NZ. 1950.Attachment 11464
Cheers,
Richard Q