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From the archives

Published October 6, 2008 in Archives, Cadets, Singapore, VLCC and From the ship. 3 Comments

Back in 1994 before pocket digital cameras, and when mobile phones were still a yuppie luxury I was a deck cadet and had the pleasure of “doing” a drydock on a VLCC. It’s a bit like the way Americans “do” Europe size wise anyway and takes about the same length of time. To get this photo taken (note the pose and complete lack of any belly) I had to get permission from the Superintendent to bring my old Olympus trip into the tank. And I’m guessing it was the mate Jerry who took the shot, thanks Jerry old boy, well you must be old now, you were in your 40’s back in ‘94 and I am no longer a cadet. You wouldn’t get me near the inside of a tank these days unless it is absolutely necessary, back then I was ready to jump into any hazardous space going and crawl any length of cargo line without the slightest hint of claustrophobia. I get claustrophobic thinking about pipes now.
The condition of the tank was passable although it looks very rusty, and the ship had already carried a few 100 million barrels of oil before I ever was there and lived happily ever after until it got turned into razor blades and other recycled steel products a few years from the time of the photograph. Esso or Exxon decided to get away from the carriage of oil using their own name after a certain Exxon Valdez had a fairly notable spill in Alaska, I actually visited the Exxon Valdez after the event when they had renamed it Exxon Mediterranean, later on it changed again to S/R Mediterranean, and the Esso Kawasaki became Kawasaki. The powers that be going on the “out of sight, out of mind, out of the courtroom” policy and I’m sure it worked well for them.
Anyway back to the drydock in Singapore, it was without a doubt the most exotic place I had ever been at the time, and the benefit of being a cadet was that there was plenty of time off, the downside was that I had no money, and left the dry dock in severe debt. I wrote about one of the escapades a while back http://timstimes.net/2007/03/14/ewan-and-the-marine-corp/

VLCC prior to docking. Now I will have to try and dig out the other photos from that time and see if there are any of the finished product or if they have been lost in the wardrobe of time.

Suez Canal Transit circa 1993

Published February 18, 2008 in Cadets, cigarettes, photos, Pilotage, VHF, VLCC and From the ship. 7 Comments

One of the few times I went through the Suez Canal was when I served as a cadet on the VLCC (Very large crude carrier) Esso Hawaii back in 1993, before digital cameras but I had my trusty Olympus Trip camera with me, loaded for some reason with XP2 black and white film perhaps I was attempting to be arty or something. Anyway I only recently scanned in a lot of the negatives from that time, it’s only 15 years ago but it seems like a lifetime. My collage shows the “bum boats” being hoisted up to deck level, one of the bridge wings and the funnel and name plate of the VLCC Esso Hawaii. She ended up in the recycling yard/strand a few years ago so all that is left is the memories and the stamp in my discharge book.
These boats in the picture were filled with “boat men” whose job was to cause as much hassle as is humanly possible to the crew of a ship, and to moor the ship in the case of emergency, completely pointless on a ballasted VLCC with a 15 metre freeboard and only a few metres to spare on either side of the canal at the narrow parts. Every door on the ship was padlocked or locked access only for the crew, this was long before ISPS, the threat wasn’t terrorism (although we were terrorized for Marlboro) it was theft, there was a special cabin called the “Suez Canal Cabin” designated for these boatmen, a simple room with 4 double bunkbeds and a communal toilet, known as the WOG locker by the less politically correct members of the crew. It was a depressing enough cabin when empty, it was disgusting when full of people and afterwards the cleanout had to be done with high pressure hose and full chemical suit, the toilet not being used in a manner normal to western standards, because they didn’t use the flush function. This may be hard to believe that people would want to wade around in their own squalor but it happened.
The old man at the time probably brought a lot of the problems we had that transit down upon himself by trying to enforce the company policy of “no gratuities”, now anybody who has been through the canal knows that the bureaucratic lubrication comes in the form of cartons of Marlboro cigarettes, everyone who is anyone requires these before any further conversation will be entered into. The Pilots all 8 of them require cigarettes, the “Doctor”, the “Electrician” and “Port Authorities” all demanded them. The Doctor climbed onboard and put a stamp on the health declaration, the Electrician switched on the Suez Canal search light, the Port Authority collected more paperwork and the agent was there somewhere too, plus all the boatmen and all the other boats that flocked around like scavengers waiting for Marlboro. But the old man stuck to his guns and refused to open the bonded store, no cigarettes he bellowed to one poor unfortunate, nearly knocking him over. Well it nearly started the 1993 Suez Crisis, they were going to stop the ship and there was going to be delays, and it was most irregular. Eventually the old man pacified the pilots saying that they would be looked after, they received a paper bag with fly spray, a couple of cans of coke and a few bars of chocolate. I thought that one of them was going to bust a blood vessel at this outrage, the other one rolled out the prayer mat and started fervently praying on the bridge deck. So we were unpiloted for a few minutes that seemed like a very long time with the one pilot glowering at the old man and the other one giving it plenty on the prayer mat, eventually the old man had to give in, was it worth letting a VLCC ground in the canal and cause an international incident, no. So the cigarettes arrived and it was all sweetness, and the helm orders started again. A few years later I saw the complete opposite where the old man sat with a 5000 case of Marlboro and dished out left right and center, and we had no problems, he explained that the British pilots in the canal in the old days started the carton of cigarettes lark, so the Egyptians were not going to break such a tradition.
Because we were such a large ship we required many pilots and there were 4 sets of pilots in total, one pair to bring us into the canal, one pair for the upper section to the Bitter Lakes, another pair to Suez and the another pair for the voyage out of the canal, talk about jobs for the boys. All received the paper bag and Marlboro included, the old man was very annoyed that he had to give in to the pilots so he was marching around like a bull with a headache, sweat stains under his arms and forehead clenched with rage, all cadets had to scatter to avoid the wrath, shit rolls downhill. He wasn’t happier when the 3rd mate suddenly asked one of the pilots if “that the airfield the one where the Israelis bombed the shit out of the Egyptian airforce?” More silence a near diplomatic incident and Marlboro dished out, and the 3rd mate had a black shin for weeks afterwards from the kick he got from the mate trying to shut him up.
More from the photo archive later.

Last Resort

Published August 4, 2007 in Tankers, UAE, VLCC and From the ship. 0 Comments

The bar on the Resource was called “The Last Resort”, I spent two trips on this giant VLCC, both memorable for different reasons but all good memories none the less. The above photo is pre-digital from the archives and taken circa 1997 at Dubai Dry Dock when she was given a face lift and had a few hundred tonnes of steel replaced. She won the safety award for that year also, much to the disappointment of all the LNG ships in the fleet who thought they had such an easy ride in that department. These days the above collection of steel plates are razor blades as they say in the trade.
She was built in 1975, and was mothballed for 5 years from ‘76 till ‘81 when she was rebuilt in the engine room with a diesel engine having originally had a steam turbine plant. The ship was a bit of a freak, with all the old steam ancillaries and the big boilers from the old steam plant with this huge diesel in the middle of everything. The temperatures in the Gulf in the summer went up to 60C in the pit, and the double crew of diesel rats and steam queens giving each other hell. She had 2 of everything bar Captain and Chief Engineer.
When I was there she had Sierra Leone crew, Polish fitters, Canadian, Irish, Polish and British officers all told 44 compliment.

She was a big old beast as can be seen from the below photo, note the draft marks on the stern, and the boys on the scaffolding around the rudder, large dimensions we speak about here.

This 270,000 tonner was demolished in the year 2000, 25 years after being built. I have a T-shirt that says “British Resource RIP, Rust in Peace 25th Anniversary The Last Resort”

How to upset the English mate

Published May 30, 2007 in English, Engineers, Deckies, Scottish, Tankers, Irish, VLCC and From the ship. 6 Comments

Subtitled Oil & Water Don’t Mix

On leave again and the posting is less frequent, home improvements to be taken care of, sinking a few cold ones now and then. My visit to St.Petersburg left a great impression on me and my travelling companion on the day who is a member of the Engineering Department, it reminded me also of when I was a cadet many moons ago. Back in those days the deck cadets had to work in the engine room for a few weeks to see how the spanners worked.

The ship is run on a departmental basis, theres the Deck department, the Engine room and the catering. Now I’m talking basics here, you can add a few more if you are taking cruise ships or survey vessels like the medical and radio operators and so forth. The two main departments and deck and engine. (others may argue the toss here)
There I was anyway off to down below or the pit for my two weeks of greasing and deafness induced by lots of howling machines, I was shown around formally by the second engineer, a Glaswegian, who had a deep mistrust of anyone from the deck department, and he hated the English mate, he pointed at various bits of machinery and roared something at me, had not a clue as to what he was saying, his accent, drowned out by turbines and boilers and me wearing hearing protection made it hard to understand, but fair play to him he did his best. We went back into the air conditioned control room after being out in 40 degree heat of the engine room, the boiler suit stuck to my skin wet from sweat and cold all of a sudden. In the sound proofed control room you could hear talking but still it was difficult, it felt like I was in a Gregor Fisher comedy version of Para Handy, the entire engine room was from Glasgow and points west thereof bar myself an Irish deckie. I was given a few tasks on the first day that included “buckets of steam” and “long stands” which I duly fell for then I was allowed to continue my time without further piss taking. Talking about steam, this ship was an old VLCC from the early 70’s with steam turbines, and all the deck machinery was driven by steam. If the deck wanted steam they had to call the engine room and ask politely for steam on deck at least 1 hour before it was required, to warm through properly. The Engineers controlled the steam, the Deckies needed steam for everything to work so it was a great source of entertainment ( the same source was boundless in it’s ability to provide hours of laughter and every time also) for the engineers to delay giving steam especially if the mate(my boss) was English and the entire engineering department was from Scotland.

One afternoon in the Gulf a hot, sunny 42 degree Celcius afternoon we heard the mate saying on the radio, “ask the Jocks for more steam, we can’t get this windlass turning any faster” the second was waiting for the call from the bridge, and I volunteered to open the steam valve being the keen young cadet I was, he asked “d’ya ken which valve ty’open?” I nodded he replied “only one turn”, so i found the big steam valve which was positioned in a position upside down on the deck steam line and I duly opened one turn and ran back to the control room and reported my task done. The second nodded and smiled. A few minutes later we heard the mate calling again “it seems to be even slower than before, ask for more steam”, the bridge replied “ok more steam” then the old man called down for more steam, the second said to me “one turn only” and away I went again.

I asked the engineers why we didn’t reply directly on the radio, the whole place erupted in laughter, and when the tears had stopped and the sighs sighed the second said, ” ach , son ye’ve a lot to learn” . Soon enough another call on the radio and subsequent call from the bridge, and I was away again to open another turn on the valve. We heard again that it was getting even slower, the second looked at me and said ” what valve are you opening” I replied -steam to deck, he said -are you sure, I said 100% sure, ok he said open it up full the mate will be getting heat stroke on top of apoplexy. I went out and opened full, even putting a wheel key on to make sure it was full open.

When I came back in to the control room, the second grinned at me, “what valve have you been at son?” steam on deck I said, getting a worried feeling in my gut, in the background I heard the radio and what sounded like the mate, my boss, crying into the radio,” the windlass has stopped , we need steam, more bloody steam”. The second said “you better show me what valve you opened before something pops”, out we went and I trotted after him striding away, we got to the valve and he nearly fell over with the laughs, I had of course shut the valve it being upside down and me turning clockwise instead of anti-clockwise.

When we got back to the control room after restoring full steam on deck, the second patted me roughly across the shoulders and said, “good man, you can make a good engineer one day, give the bastards on deck nothin’!” The whole place fell about laughing again. Relations between the Engineering and Deck departments continued at Cold War level thanks to my actions but the second engineer claimed the glory.

Stena King & British Vigilance Collision

Published April 11, 2007 in UK, accident, Estonia, collision, UAE, VLCC, ULCC and On the ship. 7 Comments

Things to do while studying for an exam, and to try and maintain some attempt at fooling myself that this is relevant, I happen to find an interesting story about two ships that bumped into each other about 5 years ago in the Arabian Sea near Fujairah U.A.E.
Have a look at the photos, and I will write some more further down about collision avoidance and the “Rules” or more formally the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea.

From a quick glance at the pictures it looks like the Stena King has planted itself in the shell plating of the British Vigilance, and thats fairly well what happened. But it should not have happened and furthermore it could have been a mega oil spill as the Stena King was loaded at the time with 450,000 tonnes of Saudi Crude. Fortunately there was no spill and the event has been largely forgotten about.

I found the official report from the Isle of Man government website about the collision today and decided that it could do with a new airing in blogland.

Firstly a bit of Rules, the basic rule is don’t hit anything or anyone, don’t go aground and for the love of God don’t spill anything in the water because the cameras love it and the greens go apeshit.
But seriously folks, when 2 ships are on a collision course and one is on the starboard side of the other, then you give way to the ship on the starboard side, usually by giving a large alteration of course to starboard and allowing our friend to starboard to go ahead of you. You may also slow down or a combination is also allowed.
If however you find yourself to starboard and your friend who should be giving way is not giving way then, when that becomes apparent to you, you should alter usually to starboard also to avoid a collision or close quarters situation.

In the above situation the British Vigilance a VLCC was on the starboard side of the Stena King a ULCC, the King should have given way but apparently did not at which point the Vigilance should have taken action but was caught with pants down, expecting the King to go first waited too long and the rest is a job for welders.

The official report from the Manx government goes into long detail and quotes rules, the Vigilance was a Manx flagged vessel, the Stena King or her representatives made no submissions to that report, different flag state Bermuda and maybe other reasons?

Here are a few more links from the time,

Smit the salvage company did a bit of work on the King.

Numast Union paper now called Nautilus.

Concordia Maritime website operators of the Stena King at the time in Swedish.

Neither ship is trading today for their respective companies.

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