Originally Posted by
Frederick Flower
Mike,
I have just seen your posting from December 2009 and hope I’m not too late with his recollection.
I worked for Moller Line (UK) Ltd at the office in Plantation House, Rood Lane from 1961 to 1974. Seeing your posting it brought back memories of that period.
I initially joined the accounts department and can recall your mother by name and although I never met her I think she lived in Montagu Square.
The voyage which you undertook was when the Chapel River was on charter to the Italian company, Sidermar. I remember fixing the Red Anchor ships Isabel Erica and Nils Amelon. One charter I concluded for the Isabel Erica was so lucrative it virtually paid for the ship. Chris Moller was very pleased. I seem to recall there was another brother Lyndsey but he was not involved in shipping. Another nephew of the Mollers was David Hamilton. He worked as a broker at Galbraith Wrightson and at some time was training to get his pilot’s licence. I don’t know whose son he was – I presume your mother had a sister.
A few years later I had an opportunity to get involved in ship operations when the company reduced it’s staff and amalgamated a number of departments following the closure of Blyth Dry Docks and Shipbuilding Co. The yard’s last two newbuilds were the handy sized bulk carriers ‘Chapel River’ and ‘Pacific Princess’ which were built primarily to keep the workforce in employment. The yard had to close as it was not on the list of Government subsidised yards as shipbuilding in the UK was in a bad state and Owners were placing orders in Japan.
At that time Mollers had a number of Liberty ships such as the ‘Grosvenor Trader’; ‘Grosvenor Explorer’; ‘Sandys River’; ‘Elys Harbour’ which were subsequently scrapped. The ship management department then took over the chartering of the two bulkers together with the two handy size tankers ‘Hamilton Trader’ and ‘Blyth Adventurer’. The manager of the department suddenly left and I was asked if I would take over. It was a very enlightening experience being involved in the day to day chartering, insurance renewals, claims etc. EB and RB gave me every support.
The Blyth Adventurer ran aground off the Horsborough Light vessel off Singapore fulled laden with a cargo of naptha destined for the U.S. military in Vietnam. The long salvage of ship and cargo was eventually resolved at the Law Courts in London which I attended daily . The Hamilton Trader was fixed on a long term charter to Esso with a small premium on the rate if it traded on the UK coast. Esso kept it on the coastal trade but the cost of running the ship with the constant crew changes became unbearable and EB put the owning company into voluntary liquidation and the ship was subsequently sold.
Later they purchased 2 bitumen carriers off the stocks at Verolme’s yard which had long term charters with Shell. They named them Horama and Urshalim which were the two breeding mares they bought to start the stud after WW2. The heating coils in the ships caused no end of problems and expense and we were always making guarantee claims against Verolme.
In the late 1960’s Mollers financially backed a company who had the contract with the U.S. military to dredge sand in S. Vietnam to make the airstrip at Danang and were paid on the basis of each cbm dredged. Insuring the dredgers, pipes and floaters was another experience, but the contract paid very well.
Another active time was in the early 1970’s when Hong Kong office secured a contract with the Indian Cashew Corporation to ship hundreds of thousands of tons of raw cashews from E. Africa to Cochin. During the season we were chartering in at least one ship each week on the London market to cover this. We had the contract for about 3 years.
I visited HK with EB in the late 1960’s when they still owned the HongKong & Whampoa Dockyard. It amalgamated with Taikoo and became HongKong United Dockayrd and that was subsequently bought by Hutchinson International.
I was also involved in insuring the syndicate shares of the stallions and subsequent foals which was RB’s main outside interest, EB’s was running his own polo team, the Jersey Lillies for which he used to sign up high rated Argentinian players for the season. It was a pity that RB did not live to see Teenoso win the 1982 Derby, which was also Lester Piggott’s 9th and final Derby win. I went to RB’s memorial service.
When one of their horses was running, and the race was on TV, RB usually went to the meeting and EB would invite me into the boardroom to watch the race. The racing name continued for some time under the trust with Harry Wragg continuing as trainer then subsequently his son Geoffrey who won the King George and Queen Elizabeth Stakes with Pindar, a horse which had been bought by the trust. Prior to that all the horses had been bred by RB.
I also used to have dinner at EB’s house in Mansfield Street when he was entertaining guests. Irrespective of their wealth, they were the most down to earth people you could meet and could mix comfortably with everybody.
All the ex. staff who I have met since those days remember their time at Mollers with affection.
Fred Flower
