Sunday, 8 May 2022

Cargo Liners

 

Revealing the hidden industry

The shipping industry functions largely unnoticed by the public, yet we all depend upon it for our daily goods and services. Except for glimpses of ships passing along the coast or into port we know little of their history or how the seafarers who man the ships live and work on the oceans. We know even less of the commercial nature of the vast industry that underpins shipping or the regulatory authorities that strive to bring order to its operation.

This series of articles “Shipping for dummies” will describe the different sectors of the industry and follow the historical development of shipping and its ancillary services.

We start with an examination of the birth of the general cargo liner and what brought about its demise. Throughout, I will use my experience in the industry to highlight some of the issues faced by seafarers in their daily life.

Whisky, Camels and Tanks

The general cargo liner

Today, the general cargo liner is no more but for more than 100 years it was the primary ship type carrying goods around the world from whisky and camels and heavy cargo such as tanks and all in the same ship!

The first registered cargo liner was the” S.S. Agamemnon” launched in 1865. She was 2,270 grt. and 94.3m in length. Although classed as a 3 masted barque she had a 300 hp compound steam engine giving a speed of 10 knots.[1]


She was owned by Alfred Holt, a pioneer of his time, who, in the start of the industrial revolution, recognised the value of steam for maritime propulsion. Experimenting with higher steam pressure than the fledgling steam locomotives he developed a compound steam engine that not only was compact enough to fit into a ship but effective in its use of coal.

The ship was the first in the company that later became the renowned cargo liner shipping line, Blue Funnel line.

As a result, S.S. Agamemnon could complete a passage around the Cape of Good Hope to China in 60 days in comparison to the competing “Tea clippers” under sail that averaged 123 days! When the Suez Canal opened four years later, in 1869, so the era of the sailing vessel was finished, and technological development in ship propulsion created a paradigm shift in the development of maritime transport that enabled steam ships to dominate international maritime trade.

The paradox, today, is that general cargo is still carried in ships but most often contained in containers in ships that are classified as “specialised” container ships because the unit of carriage is a container. So, what was it that made general cargo ships special?

The alternative term for general cargo is “break bulk” and this is helpful as it defines the breaking down of a large volume of goods into smaller, individual units fit for carriage. So, 1000 tons of rice in sacks that can be handled as individual sacks in an example of “break bulk cargo”.

Martin Stopford in his book “Maritime Economics” [2]supplies a further definition for the general cargo ship using a unit of cargo flexibility in the design of the ship.


This “lateral cargo mobility coefficient (LCM) ranks all ships based on their ability to carry different cargo units. Lines linking ship type to cargo unit indicate that the traditional cargo liner ranks highest where more specialised ship types rank lower on the index. Note that he refers to cargo liners not generic cargo ships. Therefore, we need to differentiate between to different types of general cargo ship, the “tramp ship” and the “cargo liner”. The tramp ship had no fixed routes or schedules but took cargo where it could be found and took ballast voyages between ports in the search for cargo. These ships often had a much simpler design structure for the carriage of general cargo.

The cargo liner was a scheduled service between a fixed range of ports offering the shipper both a schedule and a fixed cargo rate for his cargo.

We will focus on the cargo liner.




The classic cargo liner was designed to carry many different types of cargo. With 5 or 6 holds, each sub-divided with tween decks these ships were ideal to store various cargoes.

 The lower hold in hatch number one often was a tank that could carry small quantities of liquid such as 400 tons coconut oil.


Hatch number three and four could have lockers in the tween decks to store and secure valuable or perishable cargo such as whisky or fruit that needed cooling.

All hatches had tween decks that could support heavy lift cargo such as locomotives or wheeled cargo such as cars.

The lower holds stored everything from steel to bagged cargo to chests of tea, all separated from each other with dunnage.

Flexibility came with its challenges.

Stability calculations were a constant activity to ensure the ship was loaded in a way that did not undermine the stability of the ship. Also ensuring that the cargo was protected enough to arrive at its destination in pristine condition was another challenge.

Whilst loading crates of bottled whisky in Glasgow it was necessary to have security personnel in the lockers whilst loading, one from the shore and one from the ship. Guess who got the job, the most junior apprentice in his smart new uniform!!

The first thing the dockers did was to build a wall of crates between their work area and where we stood. The result was we could not see the crates been loaded but we could hear breaking glass. Enquiries were responded with a smile. “We dropped the crate”. I found it good sense not to argue with dockers with their wicked cargo hooks!

Four hundred tons of valuable coconut oil loaded in India and destined for the East coast of the USA arrived as a solid mass because the heating coils failed!!

One of the tasks of apprentices was to check each hatch after departure from a discharge port to ensure that all cargo had been unloaded for that port. Surprise, surprise, I said to the chief officer responsible for load and discharge of cargo, there is a large steam locomotive marked Calcutta (now called Kolkata), the port we have just left.! You are joking? No, what do we do now? It will have to come off at Visakhapatnam, our next port. There will be a real stink about that.

Flexibility had another dimension, the ability to load and discharge with ships equipment. All dry goods whether light or heavy could be handled without shore cranes, a necessary requirement in many river or surf ports.

General cargo liners were geared vessel having derricks at each hatch that could be rigged to load or discharge cargo. Generally, there were two or four derrick per hatch. In this photo of the Mahseer from a private collection, you can see the derricks at each hatch. In addition, there was normally a “jumbo” or heavy lift derrick capable of lifting 50-60 tons. You can see it on the foremast of the Mahseer.


Most cargo was handled by two derricks at each hatch configured as a “union purchase”. One derrick was boomed over the hatch and the other positioned over the quay or barge alongside the ship. The lifting wire from each derrick was joined together in a cargo hook. The operation required two winches, one for each derrick lifting wire. By alternatively hauling on one winch and slacking on the other cargo could be transferred from hatch to dockside or barge and vice versa.
This was a very easy method to use and flexible enough to handle a variety of cargo units.

The jumbo derrick was different, being a swinging derrick that was controlled in both lift ,swing and topping by individual winches. Locomotives, tanks and landing craft were loaded and discharged in thius way. Note that with only one jumbo derrick, heavy lift cargo was limited to hatch number 2 or on deck over the hatch. So Centurion tanks for Jordan were discharged with the jumbo derrick at Aqaba watched over by no less a person than King Hussein!

Flexibility also allowed animals to be carrried, mostly on deck, either being lifted singly with lifting strops or walking on board. A deck load of camels from Port Sudan to Djibouti was chaotic with local herders shouting, camels braying and a stench that did not leave the ship until long after we had discharged the camels!

However, flexibility had a price. Cargo operations were very labour intensive with gangs of dockers in the hatches and other gangs on the quay or in the barges. It would not be unusual to have over fifty dockers involved in a load or discharge operation. In addition, it took days and weeks to load and discharge cargo in a port and if you add delays due to port congestion it was not unusual for 50% of the voyage time to be spent in port!

So it is not surprising that the decline in the general cargo liner was inevitable to be replaced by the container ship. In 2006 general cargo liners numbered less than 10% of the world fleet with an average age of 29 years![3]

The golden age of general cargo liners has passed.



[2] Stopford, Martin; Maritime Economics, 3rd. edition, p 580

[3] Martin Stopford; Maritime Economics; table 14.8; page 585

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