Chinese steel is top quality, huh

[John Arton]

Bet the driver of this container crane got a bit of a shock
Rgds
J.A
https://splash247.com/crane-collapse-at-yantian/

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi John
Looks like pure luck no one was injured.
China has announced some bad news for Australia, owing to the slow down of their economy they will be cutting back on iron ore imports, Australia stands to lose around $180 Billion a year, that is a big chunk out of our economy. They must be in strife as they have lifted the retirement age from 60 to 63, I think it may be the end result of the One child policy catching up.
Des

[happy daze john in oz]

The one child policy only applied to the major cities.
But judging by the number of Chinese Restaurants here where we live half of China must have moved here.

[j.sabourn]

If you ever sailed with Chinese John you might find a few other things also. I believe have mentioned before , unless they all can speak Cantonese ( the posh Chinese lingo ) and they come from different provinces of China then they have difficulty in communicating with each other. This goes also to their dietary needs also which also have wide variations. Among 50 of a crew I was with there were 3 galleys and each galley had its own cook, think have discussed before. This caused no difficulty’s that I was aware of, and out of all the foreign crews have sailed with , had the least problems with. They answer respect with respect , and loss of face is a common thing with them all, no matter what part of China they come from. JS

[Tony Taylor]

If you ever sailed with Chinese John you might find a few other things also. I believe have mentioned before , unless they all can speak Cantonese ( the posh Chinese lingo ) and they come from different provinces of China then they have difficulty in communicating with each other. This goes also to their dietary needs also which also have wide variations. Among 50 of a crew I was with there were 3 galleys and each galley had its own cook, think have discussed before. This caused no difficulty’s that I was aware of, and out of all the foreign crews have sailed with , had the least problems with. They answer respect with respect , and loss of face is a common thing with them all, no matter what part of China they come from. JS

I would agree with that John. If there was the odd disagreement amongst themselves they would sort it themselves.

[J Gowers]

Cranes do not just break in China here is one in Willmington North Carolina, 1975 Euroliner.
I have also sailed with Chinese crew a few times,no problems what so ever and great parties at Chinese New Year and Harvest Moon Festival.

img845.jpg

[Doug Hardie]

Have worked in China at a Yard when the constructed piles for wind farms in the North Sea We had many difficulties in the Manufacturing process . When we went to deploy them off shore in the North Sea we discovered hydrogen cracking in the circumferential welds of the 6 M diameter structures these were repaired at a high cost. We avoided scrapping the lot as the cracks did not propagate into the parent metal .
The base steel was made at 2 steel plants in China both using Con cast de vacuumed steel rolled on DeMag manufactured mills which were fully automated. The steel was of good close grain structure. It was concluded that the failures were because of very poor welding practices , poor NDT techniques being applied thus leaving the cracking in detected So it was not the quality of the steel (base material) but Poor shoddy workmanship applied by the manufacturer an total inexperience of the fabricator when applied to high stress cylindrical metal fabrication. The reason China was chosen to supply the structures was because Europe could not supply the tonnage of steel required within the time scale .
Even with the repair schedule which was significant It was still shorter than European Mills could supply the base material.
Could this open up a question, is productivity is better in China than Europe is it also is cheaper, due to their Lax Labour laws.
We sold them the technology to produce good steel as they recognised the their existing steel plants and mills were not up to scratch and they invested in our technology But we in turn made the decision to Off Shore steel supply to the terminal demise of our Steel industry.

Doug

[Tony Taylor]

Cranes do not just break in China here is one in Willmington North Carolina, 1975 Euroliner.
I have also sailed with Chinese crew a few times,no problems what so ever and great parties at Chinese New Year and Harvest Moon Festival.

img845.jpg

I was in the yard at Burntisland during the build of one of Buzzard platforms, when all hell broke loose as someone ran into the office where I was saying they had bent the jib on the new crane being tested. Apparently the jib limit switches weren't connected and they continued heaving after the jib had hit the stops. Diverted a bit of the crap that was being flung in my companies direction ha ha!

[James Curry]

I spent a total of 18 months in Shanghai on new build LNG Carriers. Lloyds started out as classification society of choice. Lloyds surveyor kept on knocking back items that did not come up to Lloyds standards. One of the surveyors was assaulted within the shipyard and had to be flown home. In the end the classifacation society was changed from Lloyds to ABS. I put 3 of these vessels into service build quality left a lot to be desired. An accident waiting to happen.

[James Domleo]

Chinese crew were the best I ever sailed with.
Jim Domleo
R6103907