|
Memories
Stories, Tales and Memories from
bygone days at sea
Latest
 Back
to Irish Shipping crew page
Back
to Articles and news page
TALES FROM
THE TANKERS.
©Michael Mills 2007
Electrical switchboard fire on the Irish Blackthorn.
In reply to Edward Griffins interesting and
informative article about the Hawthorn.
Yes the Blackthorn and her sister were
indeed "H" boats, this was a Shell designation letter given to all the
vessels of their fleet with the same specifications as the two Irish tankers,
with the exception that the Shell boats were mostly A/C electrics instead of D/C
Bob Lawlor electrician and Mick Mills 3E |
control board to starboard
|
control board looking to port
|
I had heard that the two Irish "H" boats started out as Shell but were
taken over by Irish Shipping while they were building, whether that was true or
not I am not too sure.
The emergency
Ruston
generator was at the lower level engine room, just astern of the main engine
reduction gear box, at least on the Blackthorn. As to the main deck access door
to the engine room incident, that happened on the Blackthorn.
We were just leaving the med. after passing
Gibraltar,
we had just changed course and were transferring bunkers from the forward
bunker tank to the aft tanks, the tank manhole cover was open to assist
pressing up the tank, the filling gauge was broken, there was a shout from the
bridge, then this rogue wave or mini tsunami!! about 2-3 meters high came
tearing around amidships starboard side, the engineer just had time to slam down
the manhole and clamber up to the catwalk as the wave just reached over the top
of the catwalk then slammed into the aft accommodation into the engine room, and
flooded the crews alleyway.
The switchboard shorted out and caught fire. I was
on watch at the time, pressed the alarm grabbed hold of one of the
carbontetraclorid extinguishers and tried to get into the back of the
switchboard but it was locked, so I climbed up on top and started spraying the
board, just then Bob Lawlor arrived on the scene.
(sadly, shortly
after this incident Bob passed away on the Hawthorn, what a good friend and shipmate he was.
R.I.P.).
We nearly had the fire out when everything started to go black, for me
at least, as you say in your article Edward, the fumes are poisonous as I had
just found out. I woke up on the control platform very groggy a few minutes
later. The fire was out but all the buss bars were burnt to dust, Bob quickly
got the spares fitted them with some other essential wiring, we then tried all
the generators on the board, everything was ok and we were soon underway again.
The final part of this tanker tale is that the main deck door had been open
because we were having trouble with the starboard accommodation a/c unit which
was shut down, so this let a bit of a draught into the crew’s alleyway.
There are still quite a few turbine tankers around but mostly VLCC tankers up to
250,000 tons or ULCC tankers over 250,000 tons. Anyway that’s what happened, as one
of the crew said to me afterwards; we never expected to have our own indoor
swimming pool on this ship.
Next
tale- collision in the
Kiel Canal
.
©Michael Mills 2007
ex STS IRISH BLACKTHORN.
back
to top
Coaster collides with Irish Blackthorn in
Kiel canal
©Michael Mills 2007
We were nearing the end of another voyage from the Persian Gulf to Finland, an
uneventful trip if I remember correctly, no blackouts or stoppages, mind you my
memory isn't too good these days, it seems to be easy to remember what happened
40 years ago, but when it comes to what happened yesterday my mind goes into
short circuit mode, I told a friend about this the other day, expecting a
clinical reply, but what he said was ´´ your memory is bad because
it came with your birth certificate``.!! Anyway that's getting away from the
point.
I had been on day work since Port Said as we had two third
engineers aboard we used to work month about day work and watches, I was up on
the boat deck aft, when there was this loud bang and a slight shudder. I looked
over the side a coaster loaded up to the bridge with a deck cargo of timber, had
rammed us bow on in the engine room between the engine room stores and the port
turbo generator, as I looked down, the coaster, bow still locked into us was
being twisted and turned over by our momentum. I remember seeing the skipper or
pilot trying to lift himself out of the wheelhouse door, and the propeller
lashing the boulders on the side of the canal. At the last minute she violently
righted herself, and had passed our stern before we came to a stop, there was
timber all over the canal. It seems that her steering had packed up and locked
hard over to port, hence the collision. It all happened so fast it was unbelievable.
What a shock they must have got, especially in the engine room when they didn't
know what was happening. I went down to have a look at the damage, some of the
lads were busy with a couple of sledges, the Bosun fitted a cement box, as we
were dry docking after this voyage. It could have been much worse had we been
hit in one of the cargo tanks!! Anyway we continued our journey up to Finland, we
were still on charter to Gulf Oil, we did quite a few short trips after we were
almost a parcel tanker, a couple of trips to Denmark then Norway with one
memorable trip to the Immingham oil refinery, which will be the butt of the next
tale," musical interlude and craic in Immingham".
back
to top
Jigs
reels and craic
in Immingham.
©Michael Mills 2007
Not a lot of people know about the musical war
between the two tankers Hawthorn and Blackthorn, and it was more on paper
than anything else, it seems that every time we sent in an article into the Signal
the Hawthorn would come back with one of its own about their musicians, of
course the Blackthorn had the better group, but Peter Otter got a big one over
on us when himself and merry men bought a piano in I think Antwerp!
It really took the wind from
our sails. Our revenge came really out of the blue, we were doing a short trip
to Immingham from Rotterdam, and when we arrived at the refinery there was a
strike on so they couldn’t connect us up until the next day and then only one
line, so it was going to be a 48 hour discharge out, depending what pressure we
could pump at. After the evening meal, in those days we had to wear uniform if
we were eating in the saloon, we were out on deck when we saw what looked like a
pub outside the refinery gate. So 2 or 3 of us took a walk down to check it out,
sure enough it was a pub, we went in before we had time to say a pint of
Guinness, the manager came over and said "now lads you must be off that
Irish tanker, your all very welcome but any fights and your barred" nice
welcome!! A nicer crowd on board ship you couldn’t meet.
Anyway our musical quartet
went up in the evening and asked the owner (manager) could they play, he agreed
as long as there was no trouble, so they played for that night and then the
whole weekend, the place was jam packed every night, the boss knew we was onto a
good thing and got an extension for the weekend.
We rearranged the watches so that any watch keeper musicians could get off in
the evenings, as tankers only broke watches in dry-dock.
On the Friday night the pub owner and his wife were being worked to the bone,
some of the catering staff
stepped up and offered there help, which was accepted, the wages being Guinness
or Newcastle Brown or whatever. He then offered the same deal to the band,
so they became professional at that point, putting us again at the top. A couple
of us went up on the Sunday night for a pint we barely got in it was so packed,
he asked us when we were leaving, we told him on Monday he then apologized for
being so quick off the mark when we arrived, and when were we due back!!!
That weekend had many happy memories for a lot of people I think. The postscript
for this tale is that I was in Immingham refinery about 3 years ago and the old
jetty was still there, also the pub outside but as a private house, curtains on
the windows where the saloon and snug used to be, it brought back a lot of good
memories for me too.
©Michael Mills 2007
back
to top
The
trials and tribulations of ships engineers.
(Or I would rather be on my Daddy’s
yacht!!)
Mechanically speaking all ships need continual service and repair, to keep them
as they say, ship shape and Bristol fashion, which applies to anything
mechanical, I guess whether you own an electrical toothbrush or a nuclear power
station, as Murphy’s Law firmly states "If it can break it will”! We
had our share on the Blackthorn, I suppose no more or less than any other ship,
but we had two recurring problems, one was the inability of the evaporators to
make enough boiler feed water due to the fact that the brine pumps on the
evaporators were not up to the job, which was proved by various trips to the
Baltic where they worked perfectly due to the fact that the Baltic is only 20 to
23% salinity. We should have sent a message to ISL that we would be
cruising in the Baltic for a few days just so we could fill the reserve feed
tanks, they would have liked that!!!
But we kept on de-scaling the coils, as we were supposed to do as per manual
which didn’t work too well, in the tropics it was heavy going. Anyway we
managed to keep blowing down the boilers and the every day use of the
soot-blowers, sometimes by the skin of our teeth. Well luckily we never had an
air heater fire.
Anyway the end of this part of this tale is that we had arrived in Bander
Mashour or was it our favourite spot
Kharg
Island
! Some of the engineers went up to the
local refinery bar, (we were not let to leave the refinery compound) loosely
called clubhouse, it was only really a poor excuse for a pub with sand on the
floor, but it had one good feature, cold beer. The lads had met up with an
engineer from a U.S. naval bunkering tanker, who happened to be from Boston, no
doubt Irish descent.
They started
telling each others engine room problems also the evaporator problems, he said
they had had the exact same trouble but had got some new chemicals especially
made for evaporators, if I remember correctly he gave us a 5 gallon drum with
the metering valve, none return valve and bulkhead holding frame, it was soon
fitted up, we gave it the lowest setting, something like one drop a minute, we
started up the evaporators almost immediately they were making plenty of water,
we kept monitoring them to make sure there was no chemical carry over. The next
day we shut one of the evaporators down and ran on one which we also had to shut
down as we were making now too much water!!
The other problem was the port turbo generator, which had the nasty habit of
jumping off the switchboard under full load conditions in the tropics. So at the
next dry docking we had the generator com machined. After dry docking was
completed we sailed for the gulf once again and we decided to change generators,
when we did nothing happened, we went to check out the com, nothing but a
continuous blue flash all around the com. We took the covers off, they had
machined the com all right but hadn’t cleaned out the segments, and the whole
interior of the motor was full of copper chippings, it was a mess.
We now had to remove all the coils by unbolting them from the casing and sliding
them out, they were very heavy. The bottom ones were ok but the top ones would
be a problem. Fortunately one of the engine room crew was a weight lifter, short
but very strong, something like odd job the character in one of the Bond movies.
Anyway he did a great job of getting the top coils out, and putting them back
was even more awkward, I can't remember his name now, but without him it would have been much more
difficult to complete I hope he may read this because he did great work putting
those top coils in.
Anyway we had the coils, motor housing, and rotor cleaned,
we put it on the board and no problems, until the next problem turned up with a
vengeance, which I will call "black holes and discharge lines".
©Michael Mills 2007
back
to top
Black
holes and discharge lines.
We had just passed Gibraltar into the medi, the weather was great and I was
back on day-work, there was plenty of deck work to do, a couple of jobs on the
windlass, then the midships winch and the gargo steam heating valves and steam
lines expansion joints, which meant that I would be on deck sometime, enjoying
the sun getting the bronsie and getting paid for it, even the pool had been
erected midships, life couldn’t get much better!!! But it was to become a case
of "The best laid plans of mice and men".
Two days into day work, Vincent McEvitt the mate (RIP sadly Vincent passed away
not too long ago, a good friend and shipmate) came down the catwalk, "Mick
will you have a look in the pump room we have a leak "So off we went,
Vincent saying, that it was one of the discharge lines leaking. I assumed it
would be a gasket leak in one of the flanges, wrongly as it turned out. Down we
went to the bottom of the pump room then into the wing compartment, where the
cargo discharge lines went up to the deck manifold we opened the valves, and got
the engine room to put on one of the cargo pumps, so we could the ballast. There
was a leak alright.
The welds around both the flanges on the elbow pipe had
cracked, no need to worry, the out board pipe should be ok, we tested it but it
was leaking badly too, tankers do wear out much faster than other vessels
by the very nature of there cargos.
That meant we would have to remove one of the elbows from the starboard side, to
fit in the port wing compartment, as the ship had to be able to discharge either
port or starboard. These elbow pipes were no lightweights two men couldn’t
lift them, and they had to be hand blocked across the pump room to prevent
sparks on the deck plates. We should have been wearing rubber soled shoes also,
and all the pump room tools were bronze also, which now as the ship was getting
on in age were either missing or broken.
The pump man and I had to bale out the compartment which was half full of oily
water, and then I started to loosen all the flange bolts. By teatime my boiler
suit, shoes, hair, everything from top to bottom was black!!!
The next morning I went down to the pump room, dressed to kill, in tea shirt
shorts and flip flops, to my surprise there was the 12 to 4 watch doing a field
day to give me a hand. Then after lunch the
8 to 12
watch came down, and that’s the way it went until we had the job done. It was
getting hotter by each day as we neared
Suez
.
Passing through
Suez
, I stood the daylight stand-by watches, and we resumed our pump room waltzes
after we cleared the canal. Every day we had to leave at least half an hour
cleaning time, so that we could have a Swarfega shower in the engine room,
before we could even go into the change room. As we hadn’t been seen in the
saloon for days everyone thought we had all gone ashore in
Suez
!!!!
Well we kept at it and got the job done, and took the broken elbow up to the
pump room entrance, where it was lashed tight by the crew. The heat now was very
bad in the wing compartment, so that we had just finished in time, the whole job
was done with great humour by all, Bernard O`Geran kept us all going with his
wit and humour.
So with the last bolt tightened and the last curse said, we all trundled down to
the engine room, looking like the Black and White minstrel show, Bernard with
his last witticism said "Anyone for tennis lads"
Well I still had a few days bronzy time left, with luck there would be no more
unforeseen problems. When we arrived at Brunsbuttel in the
Kiel Canal
, what was waiting for us on the quay, only a spare elbow for the pump room,
which was undrilled!!! I think it was Ken Galligan and Bernard came down to the
engine room while I was on watch, ken said "do you think you could get
those flanges drilled and the pipe fitted before we get to Finland " I blew
my top, only to turn around and see them both laughing, as I was going on leave
when we got to Finland I been on the Blackthorn 18 months by then, there were
rumours she was being sold, and I didn’t want to be sold with her!!!!
By this time I had got the deadly disease Tankeritious, the symptoms being the
inability to sail on any other vessels only tankers!!!
©Michael Mills 2007
back
to top
Living
and life aboard the tankers.
After 18 months on the Blackthorn, I had a very long leave
indeed which was now at an end. So I had been doing nights aboard the Irish
Spruce and this was after she had been converted to a reefer, then around the
coast to
Limerick
on the Irish Oak as relief engineer. When I arrived back in
Dublin
there was a telegram waiting for me from ISL to come to the office to see Mr
Hamilton, (the chief engineering superintendent) which seemed very ominous, as
you usually got a telegram from the office to join such a ship your ticket and
good bye and good luck. This could only mean promotion or the sack!! It was a
very bad time to get the sack financially speaking, as it turned out it was
neither promotion or the sack, he just wanted to know about the switchboard
fire, but then he asked me which ship I wanted to join, it took me a second to
get over this, but as I was now a confirmed tanker man I said one of the
tankers, so that’s what happened, he sent me back to the Blackthorn.
Tanker life can be very monotonous what with constant sea watches and very short
turnarounds 12 hours in the Gulf and maybe 24 hours somewhere in
Europe
, so anything to break the monotony was welcome. As the ship never went to
Dublin or even Ireland our home port was more or less Rotterdam, when we had a
few hours or were in dry dock we used go to a family pub in Vlaardingen getting
a speedo ferry across the river for a few guilders if there was a few of us
going.
There they had darts, pool, and good cheap food and beer! Sometimes on a
Friday or mostly Saturday night, if we were in dry dock, Father Van Den Berg
would come down with his mini bus to take a load of lads up to the” Star of
the Sea "mission to seamen, it would finish about midnight when we would go
back to the pub in Vlaardingen and get back to the ship about 3 or 4 in the
morning. Then promptly at 8am Father Van Dan Berg would be back to take us up to
mass knocking on all the cabin doors to get us up, oh my aching head I can
remember it still!!!
Another diversion at sea was the film shows two times a week 18.00 and 20.15 the
lecky being the projectionist for the first show and the day working engineer
for the second and woe betide if the film broke half way through, when the films
were heavily dramatic I used to spend more time listening to the comments from
the stalls of the crews mess room,(where the shows were held)it usually turned
these films into pure comedy. Sometimes when the films hadn’t been changed,
especially in the gulf, I would show them backwards, sometimes they were better
that way! But the lecky always maintained that the projector wasn’t cooled
enough in reverse. Anyway it made a change especially if you could speak English
backwards!!
Darts was another sport very hotly contested there were 5 teams deck officers,
engine officers, engine crew, deck crew, and catering staff,1st prize 3cases of
beer,2 for 2nd place, and 1 for 3rd place, sometimes these were so close
competitions and it got so loud in the mess room you could hear the ship coming
for miles! I have an idea that the catering staff always had the team edge, but
the individual best I can’t remember.
Chess and draughts were also played competitive, Captain Gerry Blaney being the
expert; he would let you win the first game to see how you played then you would
never win another game against him, although I did see Chief engineer Eddy
Palmer win him on occasion.
We also had the sweepstakes usually on the Grand National, but other races as
well, it would be put over the tannoy whenever we could get it when in
Europe
, another time when engine room ear muffs could be used!!!
Birthday parties another time for craic a few beers, a few songs the resident
group playing, it was great, nobody ever going over the top with the beer, its
not pleasant to be in the heat of the e/room for a watch if you’ve too much
taken. Your cabin door would also be removed when on watch, and the wardrobe
doors fitted, it made the cabin look like a Wild West saloon!! Just the place
for a party.
Whatever genius thought that up I don’t know but he must have
spent a lot of time on a tanker! always remember Captain Cyril Brennan (RIP a
fine skipper and gentleman) coming around on Sunday inspection, seeing the cabin
door and saying, "who’s birthday was it yesterday?” It had become part
of tanker life.
I can remember we had only one time any real trouble on board, it was just a few
days off Christmas and most of the Irish crew were going home, so a new crew
were signed on in the pool at London and then some others in Rotterdam, there
were about 8 or 9 nationalities, but there was one bad apple who on our way out
to the Gulf kept attacking a couple of jordys we had on board, and he being from
near them, just north of the border. Anyway when nearing Rotterdam on our return
journey I was coming out of the engine room at just after 4 in the morning,
taking a short cut through the crews alley, to check the a/c units, when this
madly drunken guy attacked me with a knife in the alley way, we struggled he
stabbed me in the hand, then before I could get the knife from him the junior
came out of the engine room, saw the situation hit him such a box it nearly
knocked all his hair out!!
We called the Bosun and his men, he locked him in his
cabin and we thought that was that. But just as we were docking he broke out of
his cabin eluded the Bosun’s posse and headed off into the sunset, then he set
fire to a store in the middle of the largest refinery in the world. The security
didn’t take to kindly to this, and lost no time in getting him locked up next
day they came for his gear and told us he was being deported. After this we had
our old crew sign on again and everything got back to normal, or as near normal
as possible on a tanker.
St
Patrick’s day was just another day in the Red Sea, apart from the few beers
and craic in the evening, until we heard that the Irish Hawthorn our sister ship
was heading towards us loaded for Europe, it was about noon when we passed her.
We were light ship heading for the Gulf, the horn was blowing full blast,
cheers, whistling and shaking of fists went on for some time, we were as close
as safety would allow, but the catcalls could be plainly heard, any ships in the
area must have thought we were mad, not knowing about Paddy’s day!
The pool was another relaxing moments in an otherwise very hot middle eastern
day, especially when you came out of the engine room at 4 in the morning, just
to float in the pool for 15 minutes and watch that eastern sky roll by, it was
something else, to jump in with all that heat on you was enough to make the
water boil!!
One time while we were at anchor in
Port
Said
waiting to transit the
Suez
Canal
we got stand-by to move, so I went down to start and check the steering gear.
Now there were two ways to go down to the steering gear and I always took the
short cut (a great one for short cuts) between the main boilers, past the donkey
boiler and up the escape hatch into the steering compartment Before I had time
to open the hatch I heard a noise coming from inside, I opened the hatch and
there were two Arabs trying to screw a spare pump off the bulkhead, before I
could get out of the hatch, they had fled up the deck escape hatch onto the deck
over the side into their boat and off into the darkness, after that we made sure
that hatch could only be opened from inside.
On loading in the Gulf we were sometimes shut down because of sandstorms. All
loading would cease until the storm passed. All fans had to stop, all a/c
plants, all ventilation louvres closed and then it got really hot I can tell
you. As we used to keep two beers in the cabin ventilation a/c louvres for
after watch that would get hot too, as 4 hours was just enough to cool them
down, the louvres had to be turned up towards the deck head so they wouldn’t
fall out when the ship rolled.
©Michael Mills 2007
back
to top
Exploding
Tankers!
When I first joined ISL I was always on the cargo ships and I often had to
listen to those dire warnings about the tankers that they were smelly dirty and
dangerous, it was almost as if they were ships of a rival company. They were
certainly smelly, but you got used to that. But they were not as dirty as you
might think, at least the engine room, being steam and turbine were cleaner than
the diesel engine rooms. but the danger part was true, certainly in the 1950s
and 1960s when a number of tankers exploded for unknown reasons. It all came to
a head in the early 60s,as two of Standard Oil (Commonly known as ESSO) tankers
exploded within a couple of months of each other, as their tankers were the
bench mark for safety and maintenance. What was known that was common to the two
disasters was that they were both tank cleaning at the time.
For anyone who hasn’t served aboard a tanker, maybe I should explain the
procedure about tank cleaning, firstly (in those days) canvas draught chutes
were fitted and hung from wires strung fore and aft over the ships deck the
forward movement of the ship forcing the draught down into the tank to remove
any gas remaining in the tank after the last cargo. That was the
theory, and most of the time it worked. Then the Butterworth System would be
used, this consisted of a high pressure turbine driven sea water pump, forcing
the water through a condenser heated with de-superheated steam. This water was
then pumped to the tanks and down a flexible hose with a nozzle which spun
around with the pressure of water, then lowered to the bottom of the tank and up
again, washing all the sand and sludge to the bottom of the tank, where it was
drained back to the last cargo tank then pumped ashore on arrival at the
refinery.
After much trial and error testing ashore it was found that the spinning nozzle
created its own static electricity, and if there was any gas left in the tank
that would be it. Sadly many seamen died before this was found out.
To counteract the danger they eliminated oxygen from the tanks, by using the
exhaust gases from steam plant or diesel exhaust flowing through various filters
and spark arresters into the cargo tanks. This stopped the chance of explosions,
but it didn’t come until near the end of the 60s and I don’t know if any
older tankers were fitted with this system but certainly all newer tankers were.
I sailed on white spirit tankers later on, carrying JP 5 jet fuel and aviation
petrol after, but these ships had a different set of inherent dangers as there
was no tank cleaning.
Another of our trips brought us once again to sunny
Kharg Island off the coast of Iran, we had on board a retired chief engineer
from Shell he was about 85 and I think just marking time with us, Eamonn
Flannigan had just left to go on leave, why ISL never made him chief, as he had
his chiefs ticket, I will never know. But anyway we arrived at the refinery in
Kharg in the middle of August extremely hot also the sea temperature was very
high.
We started the cargo pumps to discharge the ballast and
tank cleaning sludge ashore, and when the sea temperature was so high the
salinity meter would do its nut for 3 to 4 minutes, then drop back to normal,
after enough water had passed through, but the chief came storming down a lot
the worse for wear,” we have to shut the condenser down and take the end
covers off to check the tubes, one of them must be leaking” It would have been
well above 60o c down on the pump flat to do this ridiculous job was downright
crazy. Anyway he kept on we had a heavy shouting match, next thing the mate
comes down, saying we had to go to anchor if we cant discharge sludge. So off to
an anchor we go. We open up the condenser and test the tubes for leaks with the
fluoroscope, no leaks as I thought; meanwhile the chief had turned in. We put
the condenser back together everybody, engineers and crew, were by now
exhausted, you would nearly have to put on the bilge pump on to pump out the
sweat!!!
We got hold of the mate and said we could go in to discharge now, we put on the
pumps cooled down the condenser everything was back to normal in about 5
minutes. We discharged loaded bunkers and cargo, sailed and were about 6 or 7
hours down the Gulf before the chief surfaced wanting to know if we were going
in to load! He went on leave then back to
Scotland
.
Happily Chief Harry Mooney joined when we arrived in
Europe
so we had a full complement of engineer’s now.
Harry always sent down the new engine room log book at
the end of the month, covered with old chart paper and to one member of the
engine room staff it was like a red rag to a bull. Big Liam (the junior who
maybe saved my life in the crews alley) he was a talented artist and cartoonist,
everybody and every little occurrence got fitted onto the log cover
(journalistic licence!!) It became essential to check the log book cover before
checking the job! I remember after my struggle with the fire pump, the next
morning there was a drawing of myself and the watch engineer on the control
platform up to our necks in water with the caption "do you think there’s
a leak somewhere?”.
One day Harry called me in to say that we had to do
something about the log book cover, "What would a board of enquiry say if
we had an accident below, when they saw the log book cover” I said just tear
the covers off if it bothers you, "Oh no "says Harry "They are
too good to throw away, and anyway how would I really know what’s going on in
the engine room"!! It was a big loss when Liam went on leave, as there was
nobody to fill his shoes and the engine room newspaper closed down.
©Michael Mills 2007
back
to top
Memories
and nostalgia.
If I mention the name Pax I think everybody who worked for ISL will know who I
am writing about. Pax was a good man to have aboard especially when there was a
blackout, because he would have all the machinery running again before you could
say blackout, anyway we were getting our act back together again and bringing
the main engine up to full ahead again, when Pax flashed past the junior and me
who were at the control board with a two wheel key one in each hand and I never
did find out what they were for. I haven’t seen or heard from Pax for 30
years, so if you’re reading this Pax you can let me know when next we meet, if
you can even remember.
The
12 to 4
watch always had breakfast at 02.45, it saved us getting up at 8 in the morning
for breakfast. We had our own dining room between the boiler and engine room
next to the steam to steam generator table and stools, so the 3 of us on watch
could an eye on the job at the same time. The firemen used go up about
2am
to make the breakfast, while the junior took over the boiler room. And what
breakfasts they were, talk about Irish breakfasts, these were Irish breakfasts
supreme a la carte, eggs bacon sausages black and white pudding tomatoes beans
mushrooms (if available) toast marmalade tea or coffee. If you had nothing else
all day it would keep you full!!!
It was at one of these breakfasts that I mentioned all the broken glass in the
gash can in the engine room lab,(where we tested the boiler water etc) I used do
all the boiler water testing as somebody thought that 3rd engineers had it easy
on the tankers, no Gennies to overhaul!! But we had a new 2nd engineer joined
from West Hartlepool, extremely nervous, not the best complaint to have on a
tanker, I felt sorry for him but he was very obnoxious with it, and had got on
the wrong side of some of the firemen (who were all long time seamen with ISL
and all knew the job inside out). Getting back to the broken glass, he had
started to test the boiler water, and the firemen always waited until he was
testing to blow down the boiler water gauge glasses, which gave off a terrible
screaming roar, being superheated steam high pressure boilers. Hence all the
broken glass!
When I went back to boiler water testing all the pipets and
glass measuring tubes and everything else made of glass was gone, I was left
with an ear dropper and a glass tea mug!!! It was only the wry smile of the
fireman at breakfast that gave the whole thing away!! Anyway by this time the
2nd engineer he had gone on leave.
I haven’t put all these tales in any order, just as they came to mind so the
last part of this tale is from when I joined ISL, I was just out of
apprenticeship but still had been working with the same firm after I had applied
to ISL, I didn’t think that I had any chance as everybody and his brother who
was in engineering wanted to join ISL, but when I got back to Dublin from
Killybegs boatyard, there was a telegram from ISL to go for an interview with Mr
Hamilton, which I did and he sent me
to the Irish Larch in Manchester.
Arriving at the docks at Manchester about 9am, I went on
board and met the chief engineer Charlie Devlin ,everyone was in the engine room
at this time so I went to the cabin Benny Dorgan showed me to, changed and went
below, and I can always remember the first smell in the change room, swarfega
and diesel oil.
So I went below and got my first look at a cathederal engine as all those huge
old diesels Doxfords etc were called, this was a 5 cylinder Doxford where when
you did a crankcase inspection.You walked into the crankcase with a tapping
hammer in one hand and the extension cord of the turning gear in the other, to
check all the nuts bolts and split pins etc.
We were on charter to Cunard serving Liverpool Manchester London Le Havre,
before crossing to the states, and doing maybe nine ports in 14 days. Anyway we
sailed from
Manchester
and by the time we had got to
Le Havre
I had got the juniors job down alright, what with temperatures control etc
everything being done by hand.
We left
Le Havre
and when we got full away, I never saw the 2nd engineer again on morning
watches, (I was on the 4 to 8) until we were near the Yankee coast.
I wasn’t green when it came to ships but I thought this was maybe normal that
the 2nd engineer’s junior got to do morning watches by himself!! Anyway I
wasn’t bothered because it made you very self reliant. We were about 200 miles
off the coast of Florida when we hit the tale end of a hurricane, we were
rolling badly, the bridge asked to shut the engine down 10 revs, I was just
shutting down the purifiers as they had started to dump, when Charlie turned up,
it was about 3 in the morning, and the engine govenor was cutting in as the prop
lifted out of the sea, with aloud clack as the Doxford govenors did, anyway
Charlie asked where’s the 2nd, I said he is up on the engine tops somewhere,
but he already knew he was still turned in.
We then took a couple of real bad rolls and it was no use
looking for a way out as the ladders were nearly horizontal now, if I remember
correctly it was the worst roll I can think of on any ship I had ever been on.
The donkey man said that the inclinometer went to 40 degrees. When he could get
up to the accommodation the chief went up to get the 2nd down on watch, of
course I got the blame for grassing on him,!! But the chief told him later it
wasn’t me, anyway apart from that he was an alright bloke, what he didn’t
know about Doxfords wasn’t worth knowing.
After that I had the dubious honour, because I was the newest junior to sign on,
to check all the accommodation fresh water taps for leaks, as either there was
no carpenter that trip or they had stopped carrying them on board I’m not too
sure. These were checked on Sunday just before captains inspection, Captain
O`Shea being the skipper, who ran a tight and didn’t like any of his officers
mixing with the crew not even junior ones.
I was in the crew alleyway, checking taps and having a chat with a few of the
lads I knew from ashore, when I heard the captain, chief eng and chief steward coming
down the alley way, I made a dash for the door to keep ahead of the posse, but
as I moved away from the wash hand basin that I was leaning against, it came
away from the bulkhead, and was leaning towards the floor at a 45 degree angle,
the bolts had been rusted away. I quickly pushed it back up, and stood leaning
against it again, Capt O`Shea comes in, "Ah Mr Mills what are you doing
down here?" "oh just on tap duty Captain" I said, "oh I
see" says the captain "You look as if your holding that basin up"
laughter all round, too much really, the captain goes out and the chief sticks
his head in the door, he knows that there’s something wrong but cant put his
finger on it. When they are all gone I make a quick dash down to the engine room
for a couple of bolts and a drill and put the basin back in place again,
somebody gives me a beer for quick thinking so alls well.
©Michael Mills 2007
back
to top
From the
Gulf of Mexico
to the
Great Lakes
.
We were on one more of our trips to the Mexican gulf, still on charter to Cunard
and not far off the coast of France, when we were about to be overtaken by a
three stacker in the distance on the horizon, just as dusk was falling,
obviously the Queen Mary. So the sparks either through boredom or just for the
craic, signalled the vessel, (although he already knew which ship it was)
"What ship? The other vessel didn’t deign to answer but in reply lit up
the spotlights on all three funnels. The sparks not to be put off replied
"Nice display but what ship? After that he did get a reply to their call
sign if nothing else!!! So we lit up our single Cunard funnel, still no reply,
so with our ego deflated we carried on our slow voyage to Tampa Florida, the
Queen Mary steamed past and was soon lost to sight in the darkness.
Tampa
was a very quiet town in those days, quite unlike the west coast of
Florida
with the famous towns like
Miami
and
Palm Beach
on the east coast.
After
Florida
we would go on do nine or ten ports in the gulf in maybe two weeks, sometimes
for only ten hours or so. One of these memorable ports was
Mobile
Alabama
, some of us had taken a bus up town to have a meal and a few beers, but it was
very unlike getting the number 50 from Walkinstown to College Green. It was
segregation time in the states, we boarded the bus and we all went back to the
rear of the bus, to the coloured section as it was called, this created stares
and howls of protest, (we were still ignorant of the divided bus!!) but as the
bus filled up one of the lads stood up to let an old lady sit down, this really
drove the others at the front of the bus wild.
Anyway we arrived in
Mobile
un-lynched. Then we went looking for a restaurant we found a place on one of
the side streets, went in and asked for four beers, the huge barman leaned over
the counter and said "White folks don’t come in here” Suddenly it
dawned on us this was a coloured restaurant. But one of the lads at the back
saved the day and said "Oh we are not white we are Irish” there was a
deadly silence for a while, and then the barman started bursting out laughing
and gave us all beers. I think what he meant to say was "we are not
American we are Irish” But maybe it was the word Irish that did it, being the
Kennedy era and all.
After that
New Orleans
, and this would probably be the biggest port we would visit in the gulf, and
certainly if you were a jazz fan, on
Bourbon street
every bar seemed to have its own resident jazz group, the different melodies
coming from each bar was amazing.
The electrician had a hard time in the gulf ports as all the discharge and
loading of cargo was done with the electrical winches, which were working well
into the night, so we used bring him a six pack back whenever we went ashore.
We were in Houston sometimes, and we always had a lot of visitors, we were taken
up to barbecues, parties, dances, the people of Texas were very friendly, these
parties were so good I remember one of the guys losing his false teeth getting
sick out of the cab on the freeway!!!
We were losing a lot of lub oil from the main engine we couldn’t find the leak
or why the engine could be using it. One morning after watch, the juniors did
the port watches, I had just gone out on deck drinking a cup of tea when I
glanced down into the river, at the overboard sea water discharges, and there on
the forward outlet was a continuous oil discoloration on the water, I called
Charlie Devlin the chief engineer out to have a look, he immediately rang down
to the engine room to shut off the sea water circulation and open up the cooler,
it was leaking badly with a number of tubes leaking. The faulty tubes were
plugged with brass plugs so we now had no lub oil leaks. When I came on watch at
16.00 Charlie jokingly said "This is your entire fault Mills" A big
grin on everyone’s face as they were putting the last bolts in.
After
Houston
we would go on to do more ports right down to
Corpus Christi
and
Brownsville
on the
Rio Grande
just across the border from Matamoras in
Mexico
. Then back to
Liverpool
, where on one of our return trips there was a telex from the office that I was
to go to
South Shields
to Redheads dockyard to join the Irish Pine who had just had her boilers and
steam reciprocating engines removed, and new heavy oil 4 cylinder Doxford
engines fitted. Everything was new generators, pumps compressors, new sewage
system for the
Great Lakes
; even most of the ballast and suction were chromium plated!! But this was the
first heavy oiled diesel of Irish Shipping and I think one of the first built in
the
UK
. Anyway the system for changing over from diesel, which we used for
manoeuvring, was then changed to heavy oil after we got full away. This worked
all right but when we changed back to diesel at end of passage, to manoeuvre
again, we had lots of problems with the fuel pumps gassing up, because of the
high temperature of the heavy oil. After a couple of times going around while
trying to degas the pumps, the chef decided to forgo the diesel and manoeuvre on
heavy oil, which worked very well.
We loaded steel in
Middlesbrough
for
Montreal
, what a grand old ship the Irish Pine was, the cabin on board was about twice
the size of the one on the Larch, I believe she used to carry passengers many
years before, at least that’s what I was told. If I remember correctly the
engineers had there own smoking room!!! Luxury indeed!!
We had travelled up the St Lawrence after discharging at Montréal, passing
through all the locks of the seaway, and the Lake of a Thousand Islands then
onto Lake Superior, where I remember one Sunday, John Dunne always invited a
couple of us in for quiet sippers, a couple of drinks before lunch, they were
quiet because the cargo ships were supposed to be dry.
Anyway after lunch I turned in as I was on again at 16.00, there was a clear
blue sky and calm weather ,about an hour later I was awoken by this screaming
wind and rough seas, we had been hit by what they call on the lakes, a whipper,
or tornado which usually comes out of nowhere. There were plenty of small and
not so small cabin cruisers about in real trouble now.
There were about six or so in our vicinity, so Captain Poole slowed the ship
down to barely steerage way to create a lee so that we could shelter as many
boats as possible. We passed some fuel down to some of them, but a few small
boats in the distance didn’t make it. We couldn’t leave the boats sheltering
with us, but it ended as soon as it started, when it was over we searched for
survivors but the Canadian and American coast guard and rescue vessels were soon
on the scene, so we carried on but found no survivors.
We would spend a lot of time loading in either
Duluth
or the twin cities in Canada Port Arthur and
Fort
William
. We had an English Chief engineer and an English 2nd engineer after the maiden
voyage, (the quiet man being the chief for the maiden voyage, even though he was
a superintendent), anyway the new chief was a heavy plonky, and now and again
the 2nd would ask me in for a drink after watch, but one time he found the
bottle empty. So he waited until we went on watch about 0500 then went back up
to his cabin and there was the chief in his wardrobe drinking his whiskey!!!
This 2nd wouldn’t answer the engine room phone when the bridge rang and I
always had to answer the phone, we were crossing the lakes one time when the
mate rang down (and I had been waiting for this call for years) He said
"Give us all you’ve got, we are in a hurry" I repeated this to the
2nd, he said "Tell him I got a pencil and a headache will that do?"
One more incident which I should mention concerns the
sewage system, this was put into operation on entering the St Lawrence river and
the discharge closed until we had cleared the Great Lakes and river ,being
blasted into the sea with compressed air after a couple of days. This
being the maiden voyage, for the engine room at least, there were a few teething
problems!! The air used in the blowing down of the system was taken from the
main engine air start bottles, the tank was filled with air to about 5 at, then
the overboard valve was opened and the contents were blasted into the sea. The
tank had to be inspected after to make sure it had emptied; this was done by
pulling a fulcrum lever and lifting the inspection cover off its joint, and
looking in with a torch.
What we didn’t know was that the air was leaking slowly past the tank valve,
which had built up a slight pressure in the tank, of course when I went to
inspect it on pulling the lever back it blasted the little remaining sewage into
the engine room, up to the deck head and back down to the hot generator exhaust
pipe, of course instant fried sewage, with the accompanying smell. Luckily I
wasn’t standing over the inspection cover at the time!!!! For a few days the
smell got everywhere, so you always looked twice before eating your mulligatawny
soup!!!!
Well I’ve come to the end of all my ramblings for now, I
just wanted to say I really enjoyed my time with Irish Shipping, some of the
best years of my life, it was like working for a family company everybody knew
everybody else, and you always met someone that you had sailed with before. It
was sad how it ended for officers and crews alike. They were good ships really
well looked after for the most part, great officers and crews and never a dull
moment!! Ive been back to Ireland every year since Ive been living abroad
luckily enough, but the last couple of years I’ve been hearing a lot of
complaints when in Ireland about the crime drugs etc but one incident happened a
couple of years back, which was contrary to all that, My wife myself and two of
our grandchildren were crossing Clare heading for the Cliffs of Moher, when a
bottle of water burst in the car, I stopped to dry out the car, outside a
cottage, a woman drove into the yard obviously just in from mass, as it was
Sunday and she had a prayer book, she became very concerned we had an accident,
I explained what happened, but still she insisted to get towels for us. So the
old
Ireland
is still there, people do care and are still warm and friendly, it reminded me
of that old Irish saying "There are no strangers in
Ireland
only friends that haven’t met"
©Michael Mills 2007
back
to top
|
