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The
Last Trip of the S.T.S Irish Hawthorn Two
Danish emigration officials had been brought to the airport to meet us and to
stamp our passports. A bus waited for us to take us to the Hawthorn and to take
away the crew we were relieving, one of the junior engineers did not have a
replacement, as far as I can recall he took it upon himself to leave anyway, not
on the bus, but soon after. There I was, my second ship, after three months on
the Maple second to Paddy Coffey (leckie). I took over the electricians workshop
on the Hawthorn from Tony Richards from The
charter was from Ventspils in The
donkey boiler had not worked for a long time, getting it into shape was an
experience. Eddie Fricker was the Chief Stewart on signing on, Tom Ford came
aboard at a later date and saw the charter through. The galley stove wiring
started to break down on us one day, John and myself tackled the problem over a
period of nights, the wiring had short circuited due to water getting in to the
cable duct over the years, talk about porcelain connectors and insulating tape,
I hope it lasted for the Greeks. We had a super heater fire going out into the
The
Super of cargo was a German fellow who never really made friends with any body,
all he done was eat and drink both to excess. The Howard
Fiddler was the Mate, a no nonsense type of man, preferred the smaller ships he
said to me, less people to deal with. The seaman’s mission in Ventspils was the `Star of the Baltic', not a long way from the tanker terminal, the terminal itself was closely guarded, going through a military guard hut to get out of the terminal with your recent pass in your possession to be produced on demand exiting and entering or at any time required. Sammy McGarry 4th Engineer had a habit of mislaying his pass, one night he fell into a flower garden much to the annoyance of the owner. The bridge to engine room telephone system had broken down to the extent that we could take a call from the bridge but they could not hear us, we developed a system of communication that we would give two rings on the telephone bell to say we had picked it up and three rings to say that we got the message. The telephone cable had gone down and there was no point in trying to repair it or replace it under the circumstances, there was far too many pressing jobs to complete. The generators were turbine driven and generated 200 and 110 volts D.C. in tandem. The laundry was in a state of non existence, this was situated aft of the engineers accommodation on the port side there were two indication lights wired to outside the leckies door on the bulkhead opposite to indicate if the laundry was left running. There were two photographs of the damage done to the super heaters following a fire at a previous time hanging on the bulkhead of the alleyway under those two laundry lights. The engineer apprentice accommodation was the most aft of all. Just inside the engine room door the two forced draught fans were situated, the soot blowers were a source of annoyance to keep going. I wound up rigging up a circuit to keep them operational. A port and starboard boiler with four fires to each unit ( heat exchangers) to generate 4501bs sq" super heated steam, a steam/steam generator centre of the engine room and above the manoeuvring flat. The diesel generator sat out on it's own, I cannot recall the exact location. There
was a 3rd engineer by the name of Eddie Moore aboard he later died at sea with a
Every
time Eddie Moore blew the tubes on his watch we would begin to lose the head of
steam much to Harry Dowdall's annoyance. Carbontetrochloride was deemed a banned
substance for fighting fire in or around that time, due to the deadly gas given
off when it hit a flame, a very effective way of putting out a fire mind you.
The engine room had them hanging in relevant areas, they were a small copper
unit hanging upside down as it were with a pump handle on them. J.P.Ward
and myself were coming aboard one night with hats we had bought on the black
market in the town when the gangway watch searched us, now J.P. being built like
a bean pole and I with a bit of weight on me the watch on the gangway saw that
he was concealing some thing under his coat and was duly taken away, they didn't
bother me and I ran like hell into the accommodation to tell every body that J.P,
was taken away, a while later in he comes less his hat and feeling very
relieved, there was a piano and a tape deck in the smoke room, J.P. played the
piano at his leisure. The tape deck had seen better days and was just a mass of
broken tapes. Photographs
were out of the question, there is something running through my mind that some
of the crew brought their cameras ashore towards the end of the charter and were
made empty the films out at the end of the gangway. Brunsbuttlekoog was not
always the port of discharge there was The
Radio Officer (sparks) was from Drumcondra, Walsh was his name he insisted on
being addressed as Breathnach, a good singer and balladeer. Smoking
was absolutely prohibited forward of the funnel, with stories going round that
even if you had a cigarette or lighter or match in your possession forward of
the funnel a stiff penalty was the result. Three superintendents were aboard
from time to time getting her into shape, Charlie Devlin, Murphy (the quiet
man" and one other I cannot name. The senior superintendent ( Hamilton)
came aboard towards dry dock time. 'the engine room emergency lighting batteries
were leaking, badly corroded through with acid, I made an attempt to get them
into some kind of working order to pass a visual test by the Greeks, that
worked, how it did so boils down to the fact that the test was not thorough,
just a minute or two for the new owners to see that the emergency lighting came
on. Getting
earth faults off the board for loading and discharging was always a problem,
earth faults every day; the galley was always a favourite and the engine room. Looking
for vacuum leaks in the engine room was an ongoing thing with the engineers. The
stewards and cooks I cannot recall, there was an electric water boiler bolted to
the deck in the galley that had run dry of water and had burned the elements
outright causing the copper to warp. The element was situated directly under the
cylinder, John Dunn looked at it when came aboard, he said to me that there was
no point in trying to repair it as I was doing, that a repair would be too
uncertain so we got a new base and element and successfully fitted it. The cook
and second cook and baker were getting a bit annoyed over the state of the
galley. The cook was a temperamental fellow, always a good idea to give him a
wide berth. The galley was his domain and he let you know that. The
Hawthorn was a `H Class' Tanker, the meaning of the classification is unclear to
me, the ship builders number was CJ.N. 400193, G.T. 12168.05, N.T. 7024.54,
S.H.P. 7500, registered in We
met the The
starboard generator required to be started at ore stage, the pedestal bearing on
the extreme end of the 110 volt set ran dry of oil causing the bearing to seize
much to annoyance of Charlie Devlin. One night after coming back on board in
Ventspiis Charlie Devlin got the notion that we should `turn to' and do a little
before we turned in, Harry Dowdoll made a case against it and we all got a
nights sleep. A
bit of German was picked up by all, it fell in handy as time went on. Looking
back on it, going into the dry dock was like going to a wake, the fleet was made
up of 21 ships then, a lot of good learning and life skills were picked up, it
taught you to stand on your own two feet and how to get on with people in a
confined condition for a long period of time. A
steam turbine engine room was a pleasure to work in, steam has a character all
of it's own, becoming economically not viable, it bowed out to motor engines.
The last time we sailed from Ventspils the diaphragm on the ships air horn stuck
and there we were leaving the tanker berth and this thing sounding away, we had
to shut off the air supply to it listening to it dying away ever so slowly. The
ship went straight to dry dock then and the job of releasing the stuck diaphragm
had to be tackled. The
port side life boat on the aft accommodation was almost directly over the sea
water circulating discharge, the C/E had us warned that if we had to get out of
her in a hurry that it was imperative that the circulating pump was shut down
using the emergency stop that was provided for that purpose otherwise that life
boat would swamp. The
German army had been reinstated circa 1960, to those who are not familiar with
that, after W.W.2 the German army was stood down,. The Allied powers were in Those
were the days when Irish Shipping carried full crews of 40 or so men of all
ranks, when good seamanship and good engineering were the practice of the day,
maybe we saw the last years of real seagoing when the sextant and the stars were
the only means of navigation, when GM.T., sent out by Morse code, was set by the
radio officer an the ship's chronometer tucked away in the wheel house or chart
room cradled in cotton wool to prevent damage, when the fourth engineer done the
chiefs' watch and the chief himself done his tour of duty on that watch. The
leckie stood by the telegraph and recorded the movements so that if he was
required in any other part of the ship it was known where to find him. The
stewards rattled the gong for meal times, the telegraph and horn were checked at
The
railways in Jim
Corrigan came aboard one night on the Kiel Canal after flying out from Dublin
accompanied by Michael Kennedy, a lock operator gave them shelter in his
operating station and young men being young men they were having a bit of good
humored banter between them, the lock operator thought they were laughing at him
and he threw them out into the cold, they were absolutely frozen with cold
coming aboard. I Think they were waiting hours for us to arrive. Salaries had
not yet been set, Sunday at sea was an extra, weekends in dry dock were also
extra; coming to think of it set salaries were not a good idea, think of the
amount of time worked going through the Welland canal and up into the lakes. The
fire pumps had a problem building a head of water, in fact the head of water did
not reach the forced draught flat, if there was a fire above that level well, it
was all over and done for. The sanitary pumps also had a problem with head
pressure managing to reach the wash basins and toilets, after much coaxing and
bleeding of air we would last for a day or two more. The
dry dock was misery in itself, the conditions were less than scarce, no heating
was the main problem and it just got to you as the days went by. The usual
skeleton crew were left on board for the dry docking period, the German customs
were on board haunting us, peeping and enquiring, you would think we were going
to run away with half of John
Dunn left some time in September to continue the shore leave he had interrupted
to come to the Hawthorn, later on John and myself met again while changing
places between the Poplar and the Spruce on the east coast of The people I met with Irish Shipping were in general good humoured, there will always be the odd one out, after all was not Lucifer thrown out of heaven, or so the testaments tell us. Life is not always a bed of roses. The
demise of LS.L. was indeed disgusting, an Island Nation without a shipping line
is something you would expect to read about in Hans Christian Andersons fairy
tales, this fairy, tale had no good ending. The moulding of young men into good
careers, the competent seamen all gone into history, the likes will not be seen
again, to cause the men of the line to march along O'Connell Street dressed in
their uniforms and stand outside the G P.O. to make their case was an insult,
certainly to the men who braved the German U-Boats to feed the Country, and to
build up the line, as we know their neutrality was not always recognised.
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