maritime

  “Saab—Saab”. I heard this voice in my ear. “It’s quarter bell”. “Thanks”, I said to the purri-wallah leaning over me to make sure I was awake. “I’m up now”. The Indian lookout disappeared, and I checked my watch. 2345, so quarter bell means quarter to the start of my watch. As I stood up, I noticed that the deck kept moving and I was having trouble keeping my balance as I struggled into my still sticky oilskins. Not only that but there was a background noise of water rushing aft and now and then the ship shuddered as she shouldered a wave. Wow, we must be at sea now. Still a little sleepy after only a couple of hours “kip” the slang word I heard Colin use to mean a short snooze I opened the door to the deck, and it was ripped from my hand and slammed into the bulkhead. “Damn”, hope it did not waken the others”!! The wind was strong, and I could see nothing in the pitch blackness of the night, no stars, no moon, just black everywhere. Door shut I staggered forward along the bo...

 It’s 19:30 and it’s raining, no not raining, teeming down. The sort of rain that comes at you at an angle and you are wet overall. Well, well a good start to my first action on the ship. Report to stations for leaving port and my station is aft, apparently called the poop deck! I stepped outside and down the ladder to the after deck trying to avoid all the rubbish and dunnage still lying on deck. As it was dark, and the deck lights were somewhat dim it was not easy. I am glad Colin told me to put on my oilskins on over my uniform to protect it. So, with these sticky oiled cloth waterproofs I gently steered along the after deck. Suddenly I tripped over a wire and went “arse over tit” careering along the oily wet deck on my stomach. My brand-new uniform cap with its white cover went spinning into the darkness. What a start. Then I heard a voice, “Here it is sahib” and there in front of me grinning from ear to ear was an Indian man with bright white teeth! What is this. So, I...

  Globalisation and Containerisation The birth of the container Background Technology has always brought about changes in transport and shipping is no exception. It was the Industrial Revolution in the late 1800’s that brought us steel and the steam engine that enabled the birth of the steamship. The creation of the general cargo liner and its scheduled voyages brought secure and regular services globally. This lasted well into the 1950’s when again technology changed the face of international shipping. The general cargo liner provided a custom transport service at a price. It was labour intensive and very slow with many disruptions of delivery from producer to consumer. Delays in the port because of port congestion did not help. Deregulation After the Second World war nations tightly controlled their economies using trade and tariff tools to boost income and setting transport prices nationally and regionally. The result was that transport and shipping costs were high a...

The Chief Officers cabin door was open. I knocked on the door frame and a voice shouted, “Come in”. Somewhat tentatively I entered a room where a man sat a desk with papers strewn everywhere. Clearly he was a senior officer for over the back of his chair was a uniform jacket with three gold bands on it. He was a slight figure with receding hair and a worried expression on a pale drawn face. “Ah”, he said, “You are the last of the new bunch to arrive, welcome to the “Mahout”, we are finishing off loading this afternoon and we sail on the evening tide”.  You will be on watches and share a watch with the Second Officer. This means you will also work aft for leaving port working with him.  For now, get yourself aft to the Apprentices accommodation and settle in. Go out of that door behind you, down the ladder and past number three hatch, up the next ladder to the boat deck. Walk along the boat deck until you find accommodation at the after end of that deck”, Got it? Yes sir, said ...

    Scuttling a ship   Scuttling is defined as the deliberate sinking of a ship. There are many plausible and even honourable reasons for this activity of sinking of vessel. The ship may constitute a navigational hazard and its removal from a port approach, for example by sinking reduces the hazards to navigation. A ship may have a fire or explosion and become impossible to save yet it constitutes a danger to shipping. Sinking it might be considered the solution. A classic example of this was the super tanker Torrey Canyon off the Scilly Islands of South West England. The UK government called in the Air Force to bomb it without the result they hoped for! Today any deliberate or accidental sinking must take account of the environmental consequences of such an act. Oil pollution is often the result from leaking cargo or engine or generator fuel. One environmentally friendly scuttling of a ship is to provide an artificial underwater habitat. These have been successful once t...

  Report on board S.S. Mahout 1400 GMT Birkenhead Friday latest. I don’t remember much about the journey to Birkenhead except it was raining. It would have been one of my first train journey’s alone as a sixteen-year-old boy off to sea. In 1957 the options for getting across the river Mersey were by ferry or by the tunnel. Probably used a taxi and the tunnel to arrive at Birkenhead docks. The ship was berthed in the Vittoria docks, the main dock for ships trading with the Far East. Clan Line, Blue Funnel and Brocklebanks all used this dock. The entrance to the quay where the ship was moored was through a warehouse so I gingerly went through a large door into a world of noise and apparent chaos. Stack of boxes, steel pipes, tractors, cement blocks all lay around in this vast space. There were dockworkers everywhere loading tractors with goods and driving them out to the quay. “Get out of the way, you stupid sod”, shouted a man by the door to the quayside. “You will get...

  The “Stonegate” incident [1] A story of 3 ships and 3 captains in the Second World War by John Douglas, Yorkshireman and ex seafarer. Background My father and grandfather were both seamen in the Merchant Navy at the outset of the Second World War yet neither of them talked much about their experiences. It was much later that my mother provided some insight to their exploits in this period. It started with one document and two photographs: A bound copy of the London Illustrated News dated Saturday November 11 th . 1939   (1) , an original signed copy of the German pocket battleship “Deutschland” (2) and a photocopy of a newspaper cutting with the caption “Mannen med brillene er Captein Randall”   (3) ! My mother handed them to me and then gave her version of events in October 1939 concerning my grandfather, Captain F.G.W. Randall, and my father Second Officer George Douglas, both on the cargo ship ...