Sugar Boats

[Jack Jenkins]

Hiya Keith...what year were you on the DT,I was on from Oct 1960 till May 1962,one voyage,sugar to Russia,China Tunisia,grain from Oz to Italy,lots of places in between !!

Greetings from the shaky isles...Jack

[stewart morrison]

I shipped out of Greenock about 1958 on the Crystal Cube as a pantry boy bound for Jamaica, Cuba & Haiti though Cuba & Haiti were cancelled. We loaded up bulk demerera at salt river and Savanna Lamarr which was bound for Montreal which we reached after a time where duly the mounties came aboard and arrested three of the stewards for maryjane smuggling. The upshot of this was that us two pantry boys got promoted sooner than expected which was good for us if no one else.
Did anyone else visiting Sav. la Mar like us have to flog blankets, soap etc. as our skipper would not give
any subs out. The poor man was demented by the Greenock crews drinking. We had to go ashore by canoe to the first & last, halcyon days!!!

[sailor63]

Hello Jimmy, I often wonder if Tate and Lyle boats still ship out from Silvertown Refinery jetty.I managed 10 voyages with them over the years,sugar Refiner 1965,Crystal Sapphire twice in 1968 andagain in `1969,Sugar carrier twice in 1968, and sugar Producer three times in 1969 and again in1970. Oh happy happy days. Think what that many trips to the caribbean would set you back! Cheers, Colin.K.

[Mike Hall]

i did two trips on this ship.
12/08/1959 to 05/10/1959,london,sluis skil,flushing,havana,kingston,san pedro,london.
31/03/1960 to 07/05/1960,london,port of spain,london.

[Bob Dunkley]

mike i done a trip on the sugar importer it was 1969 we joined on charlton bouys ,3/4 wetre trying to cover our burndowns from the previous trip on the arawa,we were told by the pool it was jamaica and home we went light ship to a place called Smallkalden it was in Surinam, up the paramaribo river then we topped off in shagaramis bay in trinidad before goingto port alfred /Baggotville in canada we had 20 day on the anchor .but were allowed to man our own lifeboat like ashuttle service from here to Sorrell to load pig iron for Japan it was on the way we lost an ab with a bad hand injury Jimmy knox a kiwi was taken ashore in kingston jamaica along run to Nagoya were we spent 10 days discharging and then 10 days in osaka then around to Pusan in Korea then ocean Island and narua before arriving in brisbane i dont think it was the same ship you were on it was an ex athel tanker which had been cut in half and converted to bulk ?a good ship with a happy crew ,the officers wernt as happy they all wanted to double d r us thats why a lot got out in brisbane i stowed away on the port new plymouth to N.Zand a lot of the boys jumped in aus the captains name was R.M.Pitts we all called him Arm Pitts to match the string vest he allways wore the ship itself had really temprementle steam winches that would fall 3-4 feet without warning and it had like tractor seats to sit on whilst operating we used to warm up in the cold weather.So in order to cover up our D.R we ended up with V.N.Cs instead .It then loaded Sugar in Mackay and went to Londons tate & lyle factory in silvertown , where as we predicted there were more D.Rs handed out ,but it was one real good trip Mike

[Bill Forster]

Mike,

My father, William Redvers Forster (1900-75), was the "Chief" on MV SUGAR IMPORTER in 1959 and arranged for me to sign on as a supernumerary & work my passage to Puerto Rico and Trinidad when I left school. My father went to sea as a junior engineer in 1921 and was a Chief Engineer with SILVERTOWN SHIPPING from 1951 until his retirement due to ill health in 1961. Do you remember him?

I am writing an account of his life with the title:

FORTY YEARS AT SEA: A VOYAGE WITH MY FATHER

It will be published in May 2014 by Holywell House Publishing - my own imprint.

This is how I begin the description of my own voyage on the SUGAR IMPORTER from May - August 1959:-

--------- snip

I left school in 1958 and after convalescing from a major spinal operation became the only member of the family to go on a voyage to the West Indies, working my passage on MV Sugar Importer to Rotterdam (for Potash), Puerto Rico and Trinidad, leaving on the 14 May and returning on the 12 August 1959. The ‘Master’ on this voyage was J.P. Wooler. I photographed the ship moored alongside Tate & Lyle’s Plaistow Wharf and being towed away from the wharf by a steam tug.

Before leaving the “Colonel”, the Superintendent of Shipping, came abroad to speak to the assembled officers and Dad proudly introduced me.

I was a clumsy youth and when the Mate gave me the job of varnishing the woodwork on the Bridge I kicked the open tin of varnish spilling it over the deck. The engineering officers were delighted but the Mate was furious and the only job he would trust me with was polishing the propeller on the ship’s lifeboat. After that I worked for “leckie”, the young electrical engineer who was accompanied on this voyage by his wife, a very pretty French girl whose wealthy parents lived in Paris. She became pregnant on this voyage which, I am told, greatly upset Col. Sudbury.

I spent a lot of time with Alan Driver, “sparks”, the wireless operator, who had his radio office and cabin behind the wheelhouse on the bridge deck and was neither deck nor engineering officer but employed by Siemens (Marconi also provided ships with Radio Officers). Fifty years later I was able to get back in touch with Alan via merchant-navy.com.

----------- end

Can you share your memories with me, of the company, its ships and the men who served on them?

It might make my second hand account of this period in my father's life a bit more interesting.

Bill Forster (aka Redvers Forster)

[Martin Moore]

I spent a few years with Tates, Transporter, Trader, Producer, Importer and carrier. My favourite was The Producer. Tate & Lyle was a great Company. Served with several others since late 70's, none of them a patch on the good old Sugar Boats.
regards
Martin

[Calvin Kent]

Sav la Mar has to be a contender for my favourite port anywhere. It took a while to get my head round the concept of buying a bottle of rum and a few cokes per round rather than a couple of glasses but I got there. My first time there I wandered down a lane where I could hear partying and found about thirty Rastas round a huge fire smoking ganga. I was already up to the gunwales in rum but was induced to share a few tokes off one of the huge pipes doing the rounds. I spent the next hour trying not to fall backwards off the log I was sitting on. Somewhere along the way a girl came into my life and I woke up in a room at the back of a bar/general store. No idea what happened the previous night but even in the cold light of hangover dawn I took one look at the girl sharing my pillow and thought I must be the luckiest b*****d alive. She was lovely. The old lady that owned the place dragged me out of bed and gave me a bread roll and a bottle of beer for breakfast. I'd hardly finished it when a motorbike turned up to run me down to the harbour where a boat was waiting to get me back to the anchorage ready for turn-to. Apparently any seamen who missed the last boat back were pointed towards this establishment and the lady would arrange your wake-up and transport depending on your department.

I went back ashore that evening , met up with Joy, and brought her aboard. Unfortunately it was at 0130 and the second mate was not happy being awoken and having to sort out a pass at that time of night to appease the Jamaican watchman. He was even less happy the following night as the watchman almost knocked down my cabin door at 0130 demanding to see my pass for her for the next twenty-four hours. He wrote me out a weeks worth of passes which got him off the hook but didn't help me as the watchman would not accept the next pass until it was due, ie 0130 every morning.



Regards
Calvin

[Mike Hall]

i did two runs on the sugar importer.
one in 1959,to
sluis skil-holland
flushing-holland
havana-cuba-discharged phosphates.
kingston-jamaica-load sugar
san pedro dominican republic.
then back to london
other run 1960
port of spain-trinidad.
both trips ended at silvertown.
the last time i went to woolwich on the ferry.i saw a foreign cargo ship at the dockside,
so the factory is still getting its sugar.

[Louis the Amigo]

Hi shipmates, the only Sugar as cargo was on the "bridgepool" one of sir r ropeners all in burlap sacks carreid up the gang-plank on heads of young locals all day long placed on hatch cut with large knife, pour into hold the sugar took loads of the paint off, the hatches it was golden brown it was the real stuff? some where in south America dont remember what port? the drink was white rum there and the beer was cheap and the locals were friendly.