Irish Ships and Shipping
Irish Shipping Ltd.
Crew and Ships
Stories, Tales and Memories from bygone days at sea
TALES FROM THE
TANKERS.
©Michael
Mills 2007
Michael Mills.
Sailing through the Suez canal
A series of
stories and reflections from Michael Mills on his time with
Irish Shipping Ltd.
Electrical switchboard fire Irish Blackthorn
©Michael Mills 2007 |
Living and life aboard the
tankers ©Michael Mills 2007 |
Latest Just another day at the Office! ©Michael Mills 2012 |
Coaster collides with Irish Blackthorn in Kiel canal ©Michael Mills 2007 |
Jigs reels and
craic in Immingham ©Michael Mills 2007 |
The
trials and tribulations of ships engineers ©Michael Mills 2007 |
Black holes and discharge
lines
©Michael Mills 2007 |
Exploding Tankers!
©Michael Mills 2007 |
Memories and
nostalgia
©Michael Mills 2007 |
From the
©Michael Mills 2007 |
©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
We were just leaving the med. after passing
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.
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
©Michael Mills 2007
ex STS IRISH BLACKTHORN.
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
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
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
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
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
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".
Jigs reels and craic in Immingham.
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
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
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
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
Passing through
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
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
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
Happily Chief Harry Mooney joined
when we arrived in
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
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
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
We left
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
Just another day at the office!
All watches worked in the engine room, were sea watches, we never changed to
port watches because of the fast turnaround in loading and discharge ports, so
most of the watches worked became routine, in so much as even with the odd
blackout or breakdown would be nothing out of the ordinary.
But one such watch I remember with clarity, we were on one of our shuttle
voyages from the Persian Gulf to the Baltic, and would be passing Gibraltar
about 02.00 on my watch, nothing new or strange about, except we would have to
forgo the culinary delights of the 12 to 4 five star breakfast which we did when
passing through any of the numerous straights on this voyage.
So everything was going as normal, then I noticed the control platform deck
change angle very slightly, with a loaded tanker any course change would not be
felt in the e/room because there is so little freeboard with a loaded tanker,
except if the helm had been put hard over, which is what must be happening now,
I thought that we must be avoiding a trawler or something like that. But then
all hell broke loose when the telegraph rang full astern, this brought us
all-out of any reverie we may have been in, luckily we were all on the main
platform I as soon spinning the ahead steam shut the junior engineer was
cracking open the astern steam lock open, and out of the corner of my eye I saw
the fireman pulling fires so we didn’t lift the safety valve and lose steam
pressure as I shut the ahead steam. Very soon we were going full astern,
turbines are notoriously slow to go full astern as the ahead turbine must be
stopped or near stopped before going full ahead. Now the engine was at full
ahead, we must be very close to something, but worse was to come, next thing the
telegraph rang stop then full astern again. This is double full astern a
movement which rarely happens usually when arriving or leaving congested
harbours.
So now the steam was opened up full as this was obviously an emergency, we were
at or near maximum evaporation, as we were slowly losing steam pressure, now
with the pressure down to about 350 LBS very soon the turbine generator would
cut out at about 300Lbs,I turned to the junior, but he must have read my
thoughts as he said "Diesel" he headed for the lower engine room ladder, I
shouted after him to speed up the main engine sea water circ pump as the
deaerator safety valve was about to lift. He took the engineers emergency dive
to the lower engine, sliding down the hand rail without the feet touching the
steps, very soon the diesel running light came on the switchboard and Tom
arrived back up to the platform, I left him in charge of the controls and went
over to couple up the turbine and diesel generators, after which I tripped out
the three A/C breakers to lighten the load, all this in case the turbine tripped
out and over loaded the diesel, and left us in a blackout situation and no power
to the steering gear.
After what seemed an age the telegraph rang stop, the steam pressure started to
rise and we could breathe again. we let the turbine freewheel to stop, keeping
an eye on the rotation indicator then the next order came dead slow ahead, then
slow half and full ahead so whatever had happened was passed no doubt we will
find out soon enough.
Very soon we got full away, so I went down to shut off the
diesel and put the sea water circ back to normal, when I arrived back to the
control platform the bridge phone rang, it was the 2nd mate,” Sorry for waking
you all up down there " he jokingly said, I replied "No its ok it was amazing
you could get yourself up from your chart room table nap!! I could hear him
laughing at the other end, it seems what happened was a gas tanker about the
same size as us had come out of Gibraltar at full speed, but he mustn’t have
taken care to check the radar properly, and misjudged the distance with the
slight sea mist about when he tried to cross our course and heading, luckily our
2nd mate had spotted it early when he made that early course change. At the last
moment the gas tanker changed course when we had turned to port. Anyway the
watch was nearly over now the junior went up to call the watch, as I wrote
everything in the log book, all of a sudden I remembered that I hadn’t pressed
the panic button, but it have been any use if we had of collided, when up to
40000 tons of oil and gas collide I don’t think that there would be any crew
left to remember the bang! The junior came back down looking very glum and
despondent, slumping down in his chair with his head in his hands, what was
this, some kind of post traumatic stress,(as would be said nowadays)I asked him
"what’s up”, he said "Mick when you shut off all the a/c units all our beers
have got warm again"
We had nearly been annulated and he was worrying about warm beer! any way I was
glad to see he had his priorities in the right order. After watch I went up to
start all the a/c units again then after getting the last one amidships away I
went into the bridge to scrounge a cup of coffee and a chocolate biscuit, I
asked the 2nd mate how close we had been, he replied ",very close" I pressed the
point and asked "How close”,” Very close" was the reply, so I left it at that,
we had survived, through the professionalism and quick action of the 2nd mate,
the fast response from the engine room, good luck, and Gods will, so it was to
be another day another dollar and a watch that I wouldn’t forget
©Michael Mills 2012
From the
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.
After
Anyway we arrived in
After that
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
We loaded steel in
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.
Irish Pine St Lawrence seaway. | St Lawrence river 1960. | Irish Pine Duluth. | lifeboat testing Duluth. |
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
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!! I've been back to Ireland every year since I've
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
©Michael Mills 2007