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Chris Gundry
My longest time between ports was on the Bradford City (Reardon Smiths} From Geraldton Western Australia to Dublin Via Cape town to discharge a crew member with apendisiteso one went ashore, also breaking down every few days going up the Atlantic total 91 days at sea. We discharged cargo in Dublin and Cork and payed off in Cardiff total trip of one year and two weeks.
77 days on MV Sir Alexander Glen carrying coal from Hay Point, Queensland, to Ijmuiden slow steaming
No stops for breakdowns but one stop at Cape Town for crew / stores
11 days at anchor at Ijmuiden to top it off
Longest time between home ports, 22 months, a Ropner pleasure cruise, thank gawd she was a 14 knotter
My longest was a trip on a bulk carrier from the Northern Territories of Australia to Amsterdam. Took 47 days. Did not see another ship for the first three weeks which made for lots of boring 8-12 watches!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Neville Roberts
Mine was China to Gdynia in Poland refuelling at Aden on a tramp steamer, the Amersham Hill. I was a deck boy, not sure of the voyage time but added to the outward bound total voyage was 6 months.
Outward bound Dunkirk - Marseille - Saigon - Haiphong in Indo China (Now Viet Nam) with supplies for the French troops fighting the communists, then on to China to load iron ore bound for Poland. We were in Haiphong at the time of the battle of Dien Ben Phu 1954 when the French were defeated.
The ship was due to return to the far east but the crew thought that passing back through the English channel gave us the right for a discharge so we held a stand off at the Kiel canal and negotiated with the owners on the condition we paid for our own flights home and did not meet up with the incoming crew. My airfare cost the same as all the other crew but mine was out of a deckboy’s 6 months wages of £10 per month!
Mine was the Cornish City ( Reardon Smiths} and that was from Cape Town to Osaka and that was a 6 week trip we carried Drums of Bunkers on the top of the Poop Deck ( Good Old Days )
My longest time at sea between ports without subs and shore leave would have to be on the Salambria bound from Casablanca to Moji,64 days commencing in May 1967,we were supposed to go via the Suez canal but the very day we got there hostilities broke out between Israel.and Egypt and we had the six day war.we stayed anchored of for more than 2 weeks with water rationed to 1 hour a day availability between 12 and l.I was only 16 at the time and i often wonder why the A B s in the deck crowd did not remonstrate with the Mate and refuse our alloted job- chipping the deck with windy hammers and the like. Anyway the Port Said port authority told us to leave as the canal would not be reopening anytime soon.so we went toAugusta Sicily to water and bunker before proceeding to Cristobal ( no shore leave) to do the same before transitting the canal and heading for Moji.I still regard the day we stepped ashore there -- and the young ladies that greeted us as one of the best days of my life.
Shell tanker, Hemifusus, came out of drydock Newcastle through the Suez Canal loaded in Mena for Yokkaichi Japan bunkered in Singapore no shore leave finally got ashore in Yokkaichi.
How about the shortest?
Loaded full cargo of mogas (about 18000 tons) at Fawley, FAOP till EOP at Hamble, about 20 minutes.
Rotterdam to Nagoya, Japan through Suez on the Nordic Texas can't remember how long it took but it was a long time, the Texas was a liquid sulphur carrier with heated tanks and we went in ballast to Japan, then picked up a cargo for Savanah East Coast USA, then to Port Sulphur in Texas to load for Rotterdam, around the World in one trip.