I’m the one in the lovely orange suit, the deck cadet is in blue, he is the computer expert and it’d his fault I got into wordpress, however he was not the one complaining about the wireless internet. Anyway, we are rigging the gangway in anticipation of a visit from a couple of service engineers, and they do arrive by chopper and can be seen below. The engine started to act the bollix so we had to stop, and seeing as how the Baltic was frozen solid it was just a matter of turning the engine off and the ship parks itself. So two chaps from Rolls-Royce came to fix our problem, and they did it in no time and we up and running again. Of course Rolls-Royce make all sorts of stuff from jet engines to deck winches and luxury cars, but that division is small in the grand RR scheme of things.
I once sailed with an engineer who had worked as an apprentice with RR in Scotland, he was making a tool on the lathe and the metal was glowing white hot, when a tiny bit flew off and hit his overalls square in the groin area and burned through like a hot knife in butter, he told us that he felt a sudden extreme pain in his penis as the metal had burned all the way to the skin and left a pinhole scar at the top of the “helmet” area. He was going to show us the scar but we took his word, he was too eager to whip out the evidence so to speak for it to be a make belief story and who would make that kind of stuff up. His wife left him, and he needed consolation so he came to Cork and went on the hit and miss, I met him one night in a pub on the Coal Quay, Dennehy’s Pub to be precise, he went off to the jacks after a while and there was a fierce commotion, he had gone into the ladies, I immediately thought he wanted to show off the scar tissue, but the reason was more simple, Dennehy’s has the toilet names as gaeilge so he figures Fir was F for female and Mná was M for male, wrong. Innocent mistake for a Jock to make I suppose.
Back in 1986 the ore carrier Kowloon Bridge sank off the Irish coast, in the vicinity of the Stags Rocks near Baltimore west Cork. The wreck is the biggest by tonnage in the world and is a huge diving tourism magnet to the area. She had gotten into difficulty and needed repairs so stopped at Bantry for repairs, on proceeding from Bantry she got into difficulty again in storms and “lost her rudder”, a bit of a disaster, the crew abandoned ship and the ship hit the rocks and later sank despite salvage attempts.
Built as the English Bridge in 1973 in Newcastle upon Tyne she was renamed Worcestershire, then Sunshine, then Murcurio when owned by Grimaldi, she became Crystal Transporter in 1983 and in 1985 the name welded to the stern was her everlasting and final name Kowloon Bridge.
Anyway some of the firemen on the firecourse were telling me that they were divers also in their spare time, the excitement of fighting fires was not enough for these boys. They had been diving at the wreck of the Kowloon Bridge and were saying that the area was being buoyed and cordonned off for a salvage operation.
I did a bit of investigation and found out that the owners of the wreck paid the minister of the marine €1.135 million in 2005 as a settlement to for damages, a bit more than the £1 paid back in 1986 by the second owner Shaun Kent, but peanuts compared to the value of the iron ore cargo that has being lying there for 20 odd years. There have been challenges form environmentalists and local Cork people reported in the papers from November 2006 against the “environmental catastrophe” that awaits when they start to salvage the ship and cargo. The price of metal these days has made the salvage more profitable, so I think the diving gang are going to be minus a wreck object in the near future, unfortunately for them.
The other interesting thing about this ship is that she is the sister to the ill fated “Derbyshire” which sank in the South China sea in 1980 without so much as a mayday and all hands lost 44 people in all. Nothing was done about the Derbyshire until the Kowloon Bridge sank, the Derbyshire has been the subject of many theories and t.v. programmes she was found in 1994 and a brief history is found here http://www.nautical-heritage.org.uk/derbyshire.html
Here is yours truly casting a shadow, all dressed to kill fires. With my Darth Vader sound effects mask strapped across my chest aka Self contained breathing apparatus. The yellow helmet is of brand ” Cromwell” which I thought was very ironic, fire equipment with the same name as the Cromwell who burned Drogheda and Wexford, perhaps the descendants have a private laugh about it at company parties, or maybe they don’t know……it felt weird all the same.
Anyway dressing up like a fireman and being a fireman are two different things, and I like the prevention is better than cure theory.
We have had Cork City Fireman teaching us, so phrases like “get moving langer” and ” you look flahed out Boy” and “dowtcha boy” have been used with great gusto, also “alright kid”, “alright boy” or “alright buddy” used as a greeting has been popular
We have dragged fire hose and clambered in and out of a burning module with breathing equipment and black smoke billowing out so it is impossible to see, roasting hot like the hobs of hell and when you apply water to hot metal it turns to steam which burns you too. Hard to talk with breathing gear on, and the more you shout the more air you waste, it’s no joke. Then theres the smell of burning diesel and wet gloves and well worn wellington boots. All this and trying to stay calm, and trying to think straight, and this is only instruction with qualified firemen.
Anyway last day tomorrow, thank the gods. Fireman Tim will return to being sailor Tim, a far more relaxed type of guy!
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