www. irishships. com

Home page

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH SHIPPING APPRENTICE – PART 2

 By ©Tony Clements 2007

Irish Blackthorn 1960

 A Summary of Voyages

• From Greenock in ballast to Magnisi, Sicily, and loaded crude for the Rotterdam.
• From Rotterdam in ballast to Magnisi and loaded  crude for Rotterdam.
• From Rotterdam in ballast to Magnisi and loaded  crude for Rotterdam.
• From Rotterdam in ballast to Magnisi and loaded  crude for Rotterdam.
• From Rotterdam in ballast to Curacao, Netherlands Antilles, and loaded diesel for Sweden:  Gothenburg, Halsingborg and Malmo. Then returned via the Kiel Canal in ballast to Rotterdam.
• Loaded diesel in Rotterdam for Denmark: Copenhagen and Aarhus.
• From Aarhus, in ballast to Magnisi and loaded  crude for Rotterdam.
• From Rotterdam sailed in ballast to the Persian Gulf via the Suez Canal. Port of loading was Bandar Mashur, Iran.  I can’t remember what we loaded –crude? Then back via the Suez and Kiel Canals to Tupavouri in Finland.
• From Tupavouri in ballast, through the Kiel Canal, with a stop at Holtenau, through the Suez Canal and once more loaded at Bandar Mashur. Then via the Suez and Kiel Canals to Tupavouri once again.
• From Tupavouri in ballast via the Kiel Canal to Rotterdam where I paid off.

  March 1960, At Sea, bound Finland.
(l to r): Tony (“Clem”) Clements (Apprentice), 
Captain (“Gerra”) Blaney (Master), Jimmy Coady (Apprentice).

Jimmy Coady and I, together again, joined shortly after she had been handed over by the builders on the Clyde. She was very luxurious – air conditioning and a separate cabin for each apprentice (only two of us) – what opulence! For a month or so we were at anchor on the Tail of the Bank, off Greenock. A television was hired to watch the Wimbledon tennis championships. At the turn of each tide it was the apprentices’ job to slowly turn the aerial to keep the station tuned until the vessel had settled down on her new heading.

 Magnisi was situated on the east coast of Sicily, between Syracuse and Catania. There was just a loading berth for tankers. The Sicilian crude we used to load was very thick and had to be constantly heated to remain liquid for pumping. We would sail for Rotterdam with enough bunkers for the main engine, auxiliaries and heating coils. On one voyage we ran into a very strong westerly gale with the typical Mediterranean short, very steep, swell. This cut down our speed considerably with the consequence that we ended up not having enough steam for the heating coils. The cargo became like tar and on arrival at Rotterdam a special steam barge had to be brought alongside to pump steam into us to help in heating up the cargo. It was several days before the cargo was liquid enough for pumping ashore. During the same gale the foc’sle store flooded, the paint drums were all smashed and we were left with all the gear (mooring ropes, etc) covered in a greyish paint.

 Curacao was then, and maybe still is, a vast refining complex. The crude came from Lake Maracaibo, transported on Eagle Oil tankers. The good Dutch burghers of Curacao, to ensure that their wives and daughters were not contaminated by the riff-raff of common seamen, only allowed officers to visit Willemstad. However the riff-raff was looked after with typical Dutch efficiency. In the middle of the island was what had all the appearances of a concentration camp – a central bar area surrounded by hundreds of little wooden huts, the lot enclosed behind barbed wire and patrolled by Dutch police. This was the famous “Happy Valley”. 

 (l to r): John Bird (Bosun), Peter Hynes (Pumpman), Fennely (Electrician)
October 1959, At Sea, North Atlantic, bound Curacao.

Transport there and back was provided by a free bus service, after that you had to pay! Though not much variety in drink at the bar (it was rum or beer), there certainly was a variety of girls, from everywhere in South America and all, again thanks to Dutch efficiency, regularly examined by a doctor. You could get drunk but no fighting was tolerated and the police, with their truncheons, were very quick to enforce this, as some of our crew found out when the Irish fighting spirit got inflamed by rum. 
At Curacao I met an old Irish seaman employed on the Eagle Oil tankers. He had not been back to Ireland since the civil war when he and his brother fought on opposite sides. Could I get a message back to his brother to find out if it was ok for him to return? I could and I did and his brother replied he would shoot him if he ever set foot in the country. Very sad and I often wondered what eventually happened to him.

 We loaded diesel at Curacao. On the return voyage to Sweden, we swabbed the main decks with the cargo – it was very handy for lifting the rust off the decks. It would not be thought very ecological nowadays! Tank cleaning was done with the Butterworth system. But it was not, like nowadays, a fixed system. Then we had to manhandle the hoses and rotating nozzles down through the tank hatches. Did the Blackthorn have slop tanks for the residue or was it over the side? I can’t remember.

 On winter trips to Finland we would wait in the Baltic at the edge of the ice sheet until there were sufficient vessels to form a convoy, with an icebreaker in front. One of the icebreakers was a coal burner, dating from the late 1800s. On one of our trips, it got so cold that this icebreaker, which was leading, got frozen itself in the ice and we had to wait several days before the arrival of a modern, more powerful Russian icebreaker came to extract us and the Finnish icebreaker. Once alongside, the water would quickly freeze over again and before departure an icebreaking tug would range up and down to break enough ice so that we could get off the berth.

Walport films – remember them? The Blackthorn was the first ship I sailed in with them. There were three films (each of 3 or 4 reels packed in cardboard boxes), the lot stowed in a metal box. Most British flag and quite a few Greek owned vessels were Walport ships. In port they could be exchanged via the agent but in other circumstances, such as at an anchorage, it was a case of getting the Aldis lamp out and calling a ship up ( if I remember correctly we had a booklet with the list of Walport ships) to know if a) they wanted to swap their box and b) had we already seen the contents or not. Then either of the ships would lower its jolly boat and the boxes would be swapped and signed for. The films were 16mm and each ship was provided by Walport with a projector and film splicer. Film night was a big event – would the projector work ok, would the splices hold together, etc..? 
On the Blackthorn the cinema was held (if I remember well) in a mess room aft. Everyone would bring their cans of beer and let the show begin. The electrician was the projectionist. One night the Master said too much noise was being made opening beer cans and in future they could only be opened at intermissions, i.e., changing of reels. But at the next performance, while the film was running, a “Pschttt” was heard. The electrician immediately switched on the lights and there was the culprit – the Master! On our voyage to Curacao we got caught in a hurricane but with no cargo were able to ballast ship until she was just nicely balanced for the bad weather. And the hurricane was not allowed to interfere with our film night – the show went on with the electrician and another hanging on to the projector!

 For reasons unknown (maybe we had been very thirsty), we were a bit short on the drinks when Christmas loomed over the horizon. So to alleviate the shortage, Jimmy Coady and I brewed a batch of “poteen” from raisins and prunes. Well, it was nothing to write home about, even when diluted with fruit juice but it had a kick and went down very well on Christmas day. But the next morning……!