ship rumours

[gray_marian]

#10, John, Must admit up until eighteen months ago, hubby and I had never been apart for more than a few days which suited us just fine. However two new grandchildren [emotional pull] and my dodgy right foot has changed our routine. Now he travels the world on business without me, no problem with that per se except that "Mr Magoo" is a nightmare on his own! So instead of sorting out his frequent mishaps abroad I have to achieve the nigh impossible from home. The list is endless and stressful hence my time on here for light relief....Hopefully within the next six months I shall be able once again to gad about as before [work in progress] thus lowering my BP...... His, I may add is normal

[j.sabourn]

#1.. Keith you were lucky. Whenever I loaded grain on a conventional cargo ship, the owners always wanted the crew to do. Some ports like Canada tried to insist on shore labour, but unless that ship arrived in port with no boards up, the only way they could get their shore labour in was by condeming the fittings. As mate I had numerous arguments over this, and from an apprentice up to Master have always worked with all hands on erecting Shifting Boards and Feeder Boxes at sea, would even slow the ship down for a later arrival if necessary. Not only was it a very difficult job, but unless you knew what types of grain with their relevent stowage factors (S.F.) it was hard to plan. I loaded 5 different types of grain on the Warkworth in Halifax one time. Only got confirmation of types and S.F.s a day before arrival, so had to do some quick arithmetic. The Grain surveyor wanted to pull all down and rebuild and even came on board with a gang of shore carpenters. He questioned the Grain Stability Plan and I proved the ship could fill out and maintain the required GM for the voyage. We loaded 2 different types of corn, Wheat, Barley, and Flax seed which is extremely likely to move. He sat on Quay in a caravan all during loading to make sure I didnt cheat on the manner of Loading. Came on board at the finish and said you have proved you are correct. I thought at time it was just me he was out to get, but found out he was the surveyor who had previously loaded the Ambassador which had loaded there and was lost at sea. Loading grain on a conventional cargo ship was extremely hard to work out at times, especially if you were not given the correct information. I mentioned this once before and somebody queried it as against loading grain on a bulker. I reiterate there is no comparison loading grain on a bulk carrier is a piece of psss compared with a conventional cargo ship. You had to learn all this from the deck up on a tramp, you were reliant on yourself, to call in shore carpenters, the owners would have had a blue fit, the ones I sailed with anyway. Cheers John S

[cappy]

remember the ambassador if im correct a hains boat stood by and did it save some hands or were they all lost sad times were they a manchester crowd regards cappy

---------- Post added at 04:08 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:02 AM ----------

never worked in a hold but putting stringers up was incredibly hot workthe times isaw it done was in ozzie climes...the lads were sweating bucketfulls only time i saw a knackered chippy

[happy daze john in oz]

Same on the Cape fruit ships, we never new where we were heading.
The address for insurance purposes was a park somewhere in London.

Now Cape fruit ships, would that be the cargo ones or liners?

[j.sabourn]

Grain Cargoes... For those who are in a different dept. or wondering what is being talked about. Take a conventional 10,000 Deadweight cargo vessel. She is chartered to Load 10,000 tons of Grain. The cargo will be 2000 tons maize + or -5 % percent S.F. 48/50 2000 tons Sample corn + or - 5%.SF 44/47 2000 tons Wheat + or - 5%. SF 40/42. 2000 tons Barley + or- 5% SF 38/40. 2000 tons Flax seed + or - 5% SF 34/36. Under the past grain regs, That ship after deciding the best way to load for the best trim etc. Had to decide what quantities to put where and why. You have to have each compartment of ship loaded with grain to have little or no free surface affect, so have to build feeder boxes in tween decks to feed lower holds, also in tween decks wooden bulkheads to contain the cargo, this is in addittion to the shifting boards in the lower holds. Also the stability of vessel has to be proved by the ships plans and curves of displacement that she can maintain a certain positive GM.All this structural work used to be done by the ships crew, the carpenter was the most valuable man on the ship. A bulk carrier had none of this complicated ship structure and apart from a bit of thought could go ahead and load. After proving the same as before the stability criteria. A bulker is built to carry such cargos a 10,000 tramp ship was not and had to be adapted. That is why I say there is no comparison in the work involved, re a conventional ship and a bulker. Cheers John S.

[Ivan Cloherty]

#12 and #15, that's what made us seamen John, the unpredicticality of what we were to load in tramping, anything you could think of and at times cargoes you didn't have equipment to enable to pre-prepare for them, but somehow we always managed to arrived prepared. The challenge of tramping the chartering departments (normally never been seamen) of various companies not realising that their vessels were not always fit for purpose for what they fixed and ignoring their Supts advice, if it was ever asked for!. Another nightmare cargo was bagged rice with all the horizontal and vertical air shafts that had to be built. I remember going on board a Bibby tweendecker ship in Indonesia which had arrived from Brazil with grain and no feeders in the tweendecks and grain way below the coamings on arrival, why would they do that to themselves and how the hell were they allowed to sail in the first place. Just as an aside on bulkers when loading grain in the slack hold the free surface area had to be covered with burlap and then minimum 5 tiers of bags loaded on top, could be up to 10 tiers depending upon area of free surface, neither shippers or receivers liked this, but luckily sailed with companies and Masters who insisted on it as per grain carrying regs.

Yes it was an interesting profession, at times dangerous, at times filled with wonderment even though we didn't appreciate it at the time, at times lonely and frustrating,and yes, it took a special type of woman to be a seaman's wife or girlfriend, and god bless them, they existed, took on a lot of extra work in their stride being mother and father and being more faithful than their husbands were, although personally once married I never went astray, the thought of taking a 'present' home to your wife being a great incentive to remain faithfull

[Keith Tindell]

The only time i recall the shore crew erecting shifting boards was in Rotterdam and was for sugar which we were to load in Cuba, however en route to Cuba the crisis blew up with the Yanks waving sabres etc, and so the company decided this place was not for us, so we steamed South for about 4 days, and then sent to Durban for maize, hence on to Japan, oz and many others. My six weeks quick run to Cuba turned into 10 months. That time of 10 months was a nice length of time, suite me nicely. as you say, chippie was the guy who came into his own when fitting shifting boards, gave him a break from walking round sounding tanks KT

[j.sabourn]

Ivan, the sea was always a challenging job, not so nowadays. There was always Job satisfaction. There is nothing there now, no challenge as such. The crews are all gone who had these skills. In the 8o"s I went back deep sea for a year as there was a slump in the oil Industry. I was on 2 ships during this time and are the two ships I cant remember their names. In 1986 I was offered a masters job on a tanker running about 3000 tons fish oil a trip from Iceland to Liverpool the wages for Master was 500 pounds a month. I turned down and went for a Mates job on 700 pounds a month. Previous to this I had been on 1500 pounds a month in the North Sea. We have to cut our cloth to suit sometimes. The tanker I turned down was lost with all hands on Xmas day, was a post about this sometime ago. I managed to see my working life out at sea only just and at 65 was asked to work out here until 70. Although the conditions out here were better, the lustre has gone out of seafaring, there are no real seamen left or very few and far between out there now, so bowed out gracefully. We had a hard life but knew no different and was not as hard as those before us. For all their rough and readiness and bad name seamen have with some shoreside, they were an honest bunch amongst themselves, in those far off days the enemy was the shipowner, who always seemed to come out on top. As regards grain cargoes one of the reasons why I walked off a ship amongst many others, they wanted to load her with grain, no shifting boards or anything, she had 2 tween decks and defunct freezer boxes in the upper tween decks, had very little stability as even in ballast flopped from side to side, boats had been condemned for over 2 years, and I said enough is enough. I sometimes wonder at the mentality of some people as regards shipping that is those employed ashore, some seem to have little or no knowledge whatsoever. Think it best just to try and remember the good times and put the bad in the back of the mind and put it down to experience.Cheers John S

[Louis the fly]

When Jacqueline Kennedy married Aristotle Onassis they had their honeymoon on board his yacht, Christina.
We were at anchor off the island of Tortola close to the yacht.
A rumour went round the ship that we had been invited for drinks to celebrate their wedding and the launch would pick us up at 8 in the evening.
We waited at the gangway in our best Levi's and Wranglers with go ashore flip flops and fresh T shirts. The launch never arrived, just a rumour or a wind up.
After a few cans with rum and cokes we had a good laugh over it.

[John Arton]

In Odessa in the early 80's, if you went to the beach there were loads of stunning Russian girls sunbathing topless but you could never get near to them to chat them up as shore leave was restricted. When the Russian Seamans mission asked if any of us would like to go to a beach Barbie the hands went up and it was a bun fight to see who could get on the trip. No cargo work was going on so we went on minimum manning and I waved off about 0% of the crew with silly grins on their faces as they imagined sitting on a beach surrounded by Russian topless tottie, drinking beer and stuffing their faces with Barbie food whilst being able to get up close and friendly with the natives.
Imagine the disappointment when instead of been taken to the local beach, they were driven miles to an almost deserted beach where they had the most rotten Barbie ever and not a topless girl in sight.
rgds
JA
p.s. the mission also organised a night out at the Odessa Opera house to see the ballet which was a fantastic night out even for a hairy arsed seaman, the building itself being absolutely stunning.