Memoirs of a Maltese Mariner

By Ing. Joseph Amato

Ing. Joseph Amato was born on the island of Malta during the years of WWII and started his sailing days while the island was a major British naval base in the Mediterranean. Having received his education at St. Augustines College and later his engineering apprenticeship at the then Royal Naval Dockyard in Malta, he went on to follow a thirty-year sea-going career in the British Mercantile Marine, starting from coastal British and European ports, Baltic and Irish seas as far as Spitzbergen, Greenland and Icelandic ports. At twenty-nine years he obtained his class I, followed with a tanker endorsement on steam and motor propulsion and moved on to deep sea shipping, engaging himself on long distance voyaging, and as requested by various shipping companies. Now Joseph has retired from pushing tankers (VLCC) around the globe and prefers to enjoy his days afloat, propelled by the wind on his ketch-rigged sailing boat.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: May 5, 2015
• ISBN: 9781499096736

Ing. Joseph Amato

Ing. Joseph Amato was born on the island of Malta during the years of WWII and started his sailing days while the island was a major British naval base in the Mediterranean. Now Joseph has retired from “pushing” tankers (VLCC) around the globe and prefers to enjoy his days afloat, propelled by the wind on his ketch-rigged sailing boat.

Book preview

MEMOIRS OF A

MALTESE MARINER

ING. JOSEPH AMATO

Copyright © 2015 by Ing. Joseph Amato.

ISBN:      Softcover   978-1-4990-9672-9

                eBook         978-1-4990-9673-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

These memoirs shall not be lent or hired out, re-sold or circulated without the appointed publisher’s consent.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 04/28/2015

Xlibris

800-056-3182

www.Xlibrispublishing.co.uk

709635

Contents

Preface

My Naval Career unfolding

H.M. Naval Dockyard – Malta

H.M.S. MANXMAN

RFA SPALAKE

AFD8 in the background

The Royal Air Force

Back to Civvy Street

M.V. Speciality

M.T. Methane Princess

M.V. WESTFALIA

S.Y. PEER

S.Y. LE PHENIX

M.T. SPES

M.T. SPES

M.V. Hamburger Flagge

M.V. Sunny Bettina

M.V. GARYOUNIS

M.V. GARYOUNIS (aft).

M.V. PERSIAN REEFER

M.V. Garyounis

Gibraltar – The Rock

The Kalkara Boatyard

The Billy Budd

The Destrier

The Eksund voyage

M.V. ‘Speciality’

M.V. ‘Superiority’

Conclusion

Preface

It has been long gone since I took the decision to write these few chapters in remembrance to my former seafarer colleagues at sea, my family, my friends and relations, whom I shall include as the lines are drawn through these pages. However I see it also a relief that I can put my innermost feelings with the hope that someone reading this may understand what my life was like, as an introvert Mariner, and what life can present for someone at sea, wishing always that I did not fail in my career as time drew the years closer to my final summing up and retirement as an ‘Old Salt’.

I write this book in remembrance of my Mum and Dad

To My brothers and sisters.

My wife Marie and son Mark.

To Rose.

And many others whom I have had great respect for, the list is long but I feel that I have to name them since they played an important part of my life – and my career.

To -

Memoirs introduction

I was born during the World War II years on 15th November 1940, in Hamrun, Malta. The war years saw us moving away from Malta when the family was evacuated to the North-Easterly island of Gozo since there was less war activity than the rest of the island. We were then a family of five since my youngest brother Charles was born after the war.

My parents were both Valetta citizens, and being the capital of Malta they were the first of residents to be evacuated from the city to the outskirts and safer surroundings of the Maltese Islands, however my father was conscripted into the Army for the duration of the war years and after, until released and discharged into civilian life, but he still remained attached to the British forces, as will be mentioned in later paragraphs.

I still have memories of the island which was for many years had to carry the scars of war, until later when the island became independent and free from the chains of British colonialism.

The island was so heavily bombarded that everywhere one moved in the South and South-East from the Sliema area down to Valletta and the ‘Three Cities’ of Cottonera, Vittoriosa, Senglea, with Marsa and Floriana suburbs, these parts of the island were left virtually in ruins, since they were the most heavily targeted and bombarded by German and Italian bombing raids, being the fact that the British Forces especially Naval, were mostly concentrated within or nearby the aforementioned areas.

image%201.jpg

Not forgetting the village of Luqa where most of the Royal Air Force activity was taking place. It took many years to rehabilitate and rebuild the aftermath of the war years, which left the island in total ruins and the local populace reeling from five years of siege by the German and Italian war machine.

Nevertheless, by sheer resilience of the local population and the British Colonial occupation with the troops based here for many years later, the island eventually recovered and we found ourselves also getting the share of what was to follow in later years. The family eventually returned to Malta from Gozo, where we were evacuated, in the fall of 1946, whereby we returned again back to our old house in Sliema, and my early days unfolded.

I myself was enrolled for my early years of schooling at St Augustine’s College in Valletta where we had only four classes opened within the ruins of the convent which was still battered from the aftermath of the war years, however though the Augustinian fathers teaching us worked wonders. The College classes were still in their ruins while we had to make do with what was provided.

I was to attend St Augustine’s until I left as a 2nd Form student. I was so attracted to Naval ships that I applied and was accepted to start my apprenticeship at the then ‘Royal Naval Dockyard – Malta’.v

My Naval Career unfolding

However being enrolled at St Augustine’s, the first couple of months I used to either get a bus, walk, or the other alternative was the Sliema – Marsamxett ferry.

The ferry was an old steam driven wooden boat but it got us there, quicker and with no hassle whatsoever, since at Marsamxett it was only a five minute walk to the classroom of the college after the Sliema-Marsamxett ferry docked.

The ferry ploughed along and through the midstream moored naval warships in Sliema creek, day in – day out, it fascinated me the daily movement of sailors and seafarers around the Sliema ferry every day.

I suppose the salty blood started running in me at a very early age, with the love for ships and being afloat. My Dad gave me a three pence weekly pocket money in the weekend, which was great for me to hire a rowing boat from the local fishermen in the Gzira-Sliema area and row myself out to the Naval warships, staring at each one of them in awe, watching every activity, their manoeuvring, handling and timing.

H.M. Naval Dockyard – Malta

The same thing happened to me when I entered the Naval Dockyard, I was completely taken into a different world where in those rough days it really meant hard work on board ships.

I realised that the ‘seafaring bug’ had at an early age got a grip on me with day after day, watching Naval activities in Grand Harbour. As soon as I passed my first grade to be elected to an ‘engine fitter’ my apprenticeship took a different turn.

Now I was one of ‘them’, a dockyard worker who had to clock ‘in’ and ‘out’ on time as a naval engine fitter, as requested and assigned to the daily jobs along with the rest of the workforce which at one time were not less then 10,900 men.

The job was tough, rough and dirty in all respects. Difficult as it came there was no turning back, so I had to stick to it since in Malta in those days jobs were not easy to come by, while serving in the Naval Dockyard was considered to be an honourable job as a civilian within a military service establishment of that size.

I volunteered to be assigned to a ‘gang’ of tradesmen of whom they were to be known as ‘fitters afloat’. These guys were a rough bunch of tough and hardened shipboard personnel who were assigned to tackle all sorts of rough jobs on board Navy ships. Most of them served throughout the war years repairing Naval ships.

Nevertheless, throughout the months that followed being assigned with the gang of ‘fitters afloat’ at the Naval Dockyard, it was quite an experience to be carried on in later years especially on board ships that were, at that time, Steam-Turbine propelled.

Life was indeed tough at the ‘Dockyard’, long hours of work on board ships, six-days a week for a pittance of 30 shillings per week was no joke, but the Navy did supply us with working clothes (big deal) and one had to wash them with a sweeping broom and soft soap at each end of the week for as to re-use them the following Monday.

After a two year spell with the ‘fitters afloat’, and having got to grips with the norms of working within the boundaries of the Naval Dockyard and Grand Harbour, I was assigned to work on board the Navy Floating Dock which was dubbed AFD8, having been moored alongside the de-commissioning wharf known to this very day as being ‘Laboratory Wharf’.

AFD8 was a huge floating structure, complete with workshops, stores, personnel accommodation and various machinery,control gear with generating and pumping stations. Up to this very day I am proud to say that I did serve some of my time while in the dockyard on board AFD8.

This floating dock had a lifting capacity of 90,000 tons and still remember the photograph of H.M.S. Hood hanging on the aft mess room bulkhead.

However during my time on board AFD8,the Korean war broke out and the first of ships for me to watch being docked on this huge floating dock was H.M.S. Ocean.

H.M.S. Ocean was at that time, one of the British Mediterranean fleet s’ Aircraft Carriers on station in Malta, and which many Maltese personnel were serving on board, one of whom was to be my father who, when after being demobbed from the army was given a shore civilian job and later assigned at Naval headquarters. During the turn of events my father was to join the ship and proceed as required. The vessel was re-commissioned and after the major dry docking job, we attended sea trials after undocking and the ship proceeded to the far east, as ordered.

I recall the time when during sea trials of this particular ship with my Dad on board, I was still not aware that the vessel was proceeding to a war zone. Those two days of sea trials on board H.M.S. Ocean gave me further the urge to go to sea.

Now here I was still engaged as a fitter within the naval dockyard, attending sea trials while watching and observing for two days at sea with my Dad, the activities of Naval exercises before a ship of this size and power goes to war.

The exercises in those two days at sea included taking on additional aircraft and continuous training of shipboard personnel who had been assigned to the ship before she proceeds on the long intended voyage. After the exercises the ship was to load more stores, spares and additional munitions before proceeding outwards.

Three days later the ship was away. I carried on with my daily and routine life with the job at the ‘yard as the months dragged by, boarding one ship after another.

image%202.jpg

H.M.S. MANXMAN

My next sea trials after undocking a ship on AFD8 was to be the Navy’s last Minelayer H.M.S. Manxman. Now this was a vessel which was at that time considered to be the fastest one in the fleet with a rated top speed of over 35 knots.

H.M.S. Manxman was powered by twin steam turbines built by Parsons, supplied from four x three drum water tube boilers producing superheated steam.

The same Parsons steam turbines were installed in a midship-to-aft quarter of the vessel with the two separated boiler rooms at midships. To be going around with the ‘gang’ of fitters afloat was extremely interesting although rough, in my early days as an engine fitter. By todays’ standards tooling was primitive but still interesting, one had to make do with what was provided.

My introduction to steam turbines, I must say, was started on board these Naval vessels equipped with such type of machinery, but later was followed by others first one of which was the small water tanker which supplied the Navy ships in port, RFA Spalake, this vessel also gave me the first introduction to a triple-expansion steam engine, open type, where the ‘donkeyman’, while the ship was underway with the main engine running, had to oil each connecting rod of the three cylinder engine, while timing his up and down movement to each stroke and crankshaft turn of the engine.

image%203.jpg

RFA SPALAKE

RFA Spalake was later sent back to the UK for final break-up after having served the Mediterranean fleet for a long period of approximately 18 years, based in Malta with her occasional trip to Benghazi, Tobruk and Tripoli.

H.M.S. Manxman was to be my last Naval sea trials at that time.

However docking and un-docking this ship was done under the brilliant watchful eyes of Mr Calafato who for many years was the dock master operating AFD8.

This guy was calm and cool with excellent leadership to control the gangs of personnel docking and/or undocking a Naval vessel.

My father returned home however after three years, at the end of the Korean war, on the relieving ship, another Aircraft Carrier being H.M.S. Glory. After a few weeks the vessel however was de-commissioned and drydocked on AFD8.

H.M.S. Glory was assigned with the Mediterranean fleet for another six months and later proceeded to the UK for final lay-up, de-commissioning and scrapping.

image%201.jpg

AFD8 in the background

During my time serving part of my apprenticeship on the Admiralty Floating Dock, I did gain a considerable amount of shipboard engineering experience which was to reflect enormously in later years of my engineering career on board ships.

My burning urge to go to sea was at an all time high when I met my cousin Charles and we went to the then’ Naval Shore establishment of H.M.S. St Angelo, which was enlisting boy cadets for the Royal Navy.

We went to the enlisting officer, got the enlistment papers all filled up and the last hurdle was to have our parents to accept and sign. Charles got his okay’d and signed by his parents, but my mother just would not give in. She was adamant that her elder son will not follow his father to go to sea for any length of time.

This was a great blow for my morale at that time, watching my cousin Charles achieving his goal starting a new adventure and a career while I had to remain within the,what has become a dull routine, boarding ships at the ‘yard, undergoing various repairs, with nothing to look forward to while I was so enthusiastic in taking a naval engineering career.

However I did understand later what it means for a mother to have her eldest son going to sea. My Dad never objected, in fact he wanted me to follow a career, but in Malta those years were difficult for a job change, and one had to stick to what was provided. As in my case I had to stick to the job I had at the Naval dock yard.

Nevertheless, I came across some mates of mine who were engaged on RFA ships which normally also dry docked in Malta. I got introduced to the personnel manager who was engaging personnel on board while the ship RFA Tarbatness was on AFD8.

I was still under 18 years of age and therefore I still had to have my parents consent to leave the island. With the help of a friend at the ‘yard I managed to get a signature for, in turn, to obtain what was known at that time, a - Commonwealth Passport /Citizen of the United Kingdom -.

Again my mother just would not sign the final paper for me to get released from the ‘yard and board this RFA ship which would have given me the chance of a lifetime. However I was still determined not to give up and go ‘under’.

My strong urge and determination to sail on any vessel really gripped me to the point that I would not discuss it with anybody.

That every Saturday morning spending my three pence pocket money to hire the boat in Sliema Creek was my weekly ‘break’ to roam around the ships freely, handling the boat to every wash and roll which the Naval cutters left after passing me. I never had or wore a life-jacket but I was always a good swimmer and not afraid to go over.

My brother Fritz came with me a couple of times when I rented the boat on a Saturday morning, but he did not like my short one hour adventure in Sliema Creek rowing around the naval ships, and soon gave it up.

I taught myself many a boat-handling technique from the Navy sailors which later on in life found them very useful, and up to this very day I can ‘Scull’ a boat with one oar at the stern. A very rare sight indeed nowadays with the local yachties. I had a sharp eye for various rope work and boat handling for which I copied the navy sailors which were put into practice, and remain with me to this very day.

I started having dreams of owning my own boat from an early age, so confident in handling a vessel afloat that safety at sea was the last thing I thought of. Even on board Naval cutters we never ever donned any life-jackets, or even safety helmets.

The only safety drill at that time in the ‘yard was a simple exercise how to use a fire extinguisher or handle a fire hose. However the ‘yard did have paramedics with a stand-by Ambulance and its own Fire Brigade.

Nowadays things are totally different after such a long career at sea, and safety is considered to be of paramount importance, in fact I feel as if I have been completely indoctrinated towards safety for myself and others who dare to go to sea without being prepared.

In fact I have had bitter arguments with sea-going hardened fishermen especially those who go to sea unprepared for any emergency.

The Royal Air Force

I was well past my 16 years of age when I approached a Royal Air Force enlisting officer who told me that the RAF has rescue boats and engine fitters are always in demand, but I had to enlist.

That did it. My mind was racing on how to get enlisted locally and soon found all the information necessary. My interest in the dockyard somehow abated and I was every day going to work at the ‘yard very half-hearted without mentioning a word of what was ‘up my sleeve’.

I went to an RAF enlistment office in South Street, Valletta and through an interview showed my Naval Dockyard indentures as an engine fitter with a good record of service, this time I found a good guy who was to remain my best of friends for many years to come. Anthony Balzan was an old school mate who was going through the same patch in life, we backed each other while out of the enlistment office hatched a plan to sign each other’s papers.

We went to see the local parish priest who having seen the space signed as if signed by our parents consenting, he asked no further questions and gave us his blessing and signed.

The very next day Anthony and myself went to the Royal Air Force recruitment office in South Street Valletta, were accepted and told me to go to the ‘yard and resign.

This, so I did.

In my youthful days there was no turning back.

On receiving my papers of acceptance from the RAF I informed my parents who, as expected, my mother blew her top off, but that was to be expected. If I would have told her what I was up to, she would have rejected me joining up.

It was funny with mothers, little did she realise the hardship of life I did endure following my apprenticeship at the Naval Dockyard.

I signed off at the ‘yard, bid farewell to my workmates, handed in my working gear and tools and walked out of the Naval Dockyard, Malta.

But it was not to be for the last time.

It was a feeling I can never forget, and looking back I still miss that activity of watching that mass of workers clocking ‘in’ and ‘out’ while rushing back home to their families after their daily struggle to earn a living in such rough and tough conditions.

However, I had to return back to the ‘yard many times in later years on various ships, after recommending the work (and the workers) to my ship owning employers, as will be mentioned in the foregoing chapters.

In March 1958 I left the dockyard for the last time, feeling at first very unsecure and somewhat bewildered if I had done the right thing and what the future might hold for me. Now I was on my own, I was young and had to carve my own future.

Enlisting in the Royal Air Force for a four-year stint was not easy as a uniformed serviceman, however as the say in English – ‘one has to grin and bear it’.

In the service as the saying goes – the coal is there for burning – they look after and train you, clothe and feed you including accommodation, but you have to give your due as expected in an honest and respectable way.

After One month of enlisting I was to proceed to the United Kingdom for further training.

The Royal Air Force was an interesting life indeed, disciplined, clean and with varied types of work. I had to attend to a six-month basic training course at ‘RAF Melksham’ and other shore stations, and military installations. Any interesting training as long as it was outdoor I used to volunteer. I became a ‘marksman’ on a shooting range and gained good marks handling .22 and 303 calibre rifles, and later on even gaining accuracy firing Hispano 40 and 50mm cannons.

I joined an amateur boxing team, within the RAF, and was classed as a light-heavyweight, and for which I attended many bouts challenging other service guys from the Army and the Navy.

A few scratches here and there after a boxing bout and the service was always there and ready to put it right.

I was posted to Gibraltar and Cyprus. Bearing in mind that as an engine fitter I was shifted from one unit to another fitting out engines in workshops here and there, including transport and the Fire Brigade.

Nevertheless I kept on after two years in the service applying for a posting with a Search and Rescue unit afloat.

Eventually I received a posting to England where I joined a Marine Craft Unit in Plymouth operating high speed rescue and target-towing launches which, although in very good running condition but they were old and equipped with the old Napier Sea Lion petrol - aviation engines. I completed a full six-months stint at Plymouth running search and rescue boats in atrocious weather conditions. Cold, rough and miserable, hating myself to have joined the RAF and wished to be back at the ‘yard.

In a quick turn of events however I was to be posted back to Malta and within one week I hopped on an RAF truck to take me on a seven-hour journey from the Plymouth Marine Craft Unit base to RAF Brize Norton. At that time in Britain the motorways were not even thought of. The RAF truck with all the gear stopped about four times for a break on the way.

I joined a Mark 1 Avro- Shackleton bomber heading to Gibraltar with extra crew on board, the aircraft landed 7 hours later. However the same plane was to be re-fuelled and serviced, some provisions taken on board and was told that next stop is Malta, since the Shackleton was to join No38 Bomber Squadron based in Malta.

Again the flight from Gibraltar to Malta was indeed rough, noisy and slow with no comfort whatsoever. All of us were exhausted and indeed relieved when the aircraft touched down on runway 24 at Luqa Air Station, where the aircraft had to join the squadron and be based until its disbandment in 1967.

I reported according to my draft papers in Malta where I finally settled, and where I was to be attached to an RAF Search and Rescue unit called ‘1151 MCU’ at their base in Kalafrana operating RAF patrol boats for search and rescue, including target-towing operations.

Little did I know that the same unit had to operate in conjunction with No38 Shackleton Squadron for target towing and sea rescue operations.

These craft were powered with Dorman Diesels and with Paxman Ricardo Marine Diesel engines, V10 and V12 type respectively. They were powerful engines with the boats reaching past the 30knot mark, but very heavy on fuel consumption.

Each boat had its separate but tight control room with hardly space for seating two persons. A watertight door separated the control room from the engine and other machinery space. All equipment was DC powered and noisy like hell.

Another space aft of the main switchboard was housing the battery room.

I fell in love with the Dorman Diesel V10 Marine Diesel Engines which at first were installed on the SAR patrol boats later to be fitted with and shorter stroke but more powerful the ‘Paxman Ricardo V12’ direct injection marine diesel engines which were a smoother running engines with less resonance and vibration than their predecessors, but of a higher rate in fuel consumption.

The V12 Paxman Ricardo engine was used by the British Forces, liked and preferred by engine fitters who became attached to this fine engine which was very well precision engineered and ran like a dream. The engine could be fresh and/or raw water cooled, while the engine block could be separated and lifted off from the engine lower crankcase, leaving the crankshaft in position on its lower bearings.

I always had a great interest to visit the engine’s assembling factory but unfortunately the opportunity never came.

At ‘1151 MCU’ workshops and RAF Safi maintenance workshops in Malta the engineering activity for a guy like me was enormous and I consider myself lucky, near other engine fitters, that I managed to gain so much engine experience on marine diesel engines at such an early age of my career.

The assembly, timing and start-up of every Paxman Ricardo V12 marine engine left in me such satisfaction, to this very day.

This was a pure British-built and manufactured engine, in my opinion, with a difference. The last one I have come across, still running and in very good condition for its age, was seen on board a private yacht here in Malta.

Eventually, my short career in the RAF came to a close and I was to be demobbed in the UK. This time the flight back to the UK was much more comfortable and different then the previous coming out through Gibraltar on the Avro-Shackleton.

The returning flight to the UK was on a BEA Elizabethan Four-engined turbo-prop aircraft which made a single refuelling stop in Rome.

Back to Civvy Street

After one month I was discharged at Royal Air Force Brize Norton, handed in my kit, and walked out in ‘civvy street’.

There, this was it, out of uniform and can do what I like!!!

My discharge book, passport, apprenticeship indentures all in order, but no job.

I rented a room in Highgate, North London area, a comfortable house with an Italian family who rented me the attic, a ‘room at the top’, clean and decent to live in.

But what I was frantic about and went through my mind was,’what about if I ran out of cash’? I had to find work. I was alone in the middle of London, to panic there was no turning back, I had to preserve my sanity and strive forward one way or another.

In the ‘attic’ of my rented room in Highgate, I spent hours on end wracking my brains. Walking the streets of Highgate I found a very helpful and organised government establishment called the ‘Citizen’s Advice Bureau’, for which I was not aware of.

What was constantly on my mind however was, -well what about if I ran out of cash - then the first enlistment office had to be it, and back in the RAF, at least being back in uniform one always had a roof on his head and three meals a day.

However, a bright fellow at the citizen’s advice bureau told me about the RAF rehabilitation office which was within the North London area. That very same day, with my papers in order I approached the officer who was handling personnel just discharged from the RAF. I was offered to enlist again and it was touch and go, but a job as an engine fitter in a local workshops of the bus company Eastern National situated near Kings Cross was available so I did not hesitate, and took it straight away. I was to last for two years with Eastern National, just about right to see me through, save some cash, have a brief break to Malta and back to the UK.

Life was treating me better. I moved house and through a small mortgage bought a decent, detached two-bedroomed bungalow in Kent just between Gravesend and Chatham Naval Dockyard, my ‘drift’ towards the sea was becoming again more of a never-ending craze. I lived only a couple of kilometres from the River Thames with Chatham Dockyard nearby, and the urge of applying for a job at the dockyard nearby there was ever so tempting.

However, a visit to ‘Bowaters Paper Division’ landed me a fitters job in a workshop with an excellent bunch of lads and well-equipped tooling for the work I was assigned to do. Since I had already steam experience from the Naval apprenticeship, the job was not difficult and soon became more accustomed to working within the Paper Mill routines which was fabricating rolls and rolls of newsprint destined for the London Fleet Street printing machines of various newspapers.

Strictly, time was not wasted at the paper mill but the job to advance in an engineering career and, ‘go to sea’, was holding me back.

At ‘Bowaters’ they also had a transport division and their own Generating Station, so being a diesel engine fitter I was to be assigned to other work in line with my experience.

However, a chance came when an ‘Everard ‘ ship was alongside the deep water river quay.

The vessel was short of a 4th engineer. The Master and Chief Engineer were approached and on producing my papers that very afternoon, I was accepted.

Bowaters were informed and within three days I was released to join the vessel.

I got my gear packed, my papers in order, signed on the vessel ‘Speciality’ and settled on board. The Master was Capt Wadhams who was a very nice guy but the Chief Engineer Thomas Moore was a grumpy old sod who never smiled and he was strictly there to run a ship. For a long time the two never talked to each other with myself and the other engine room crew had to deliver verbal messages to and fro, to the captain and the chief engineer. For us the engine room crew it was alright because it gave us a chance to go on deck and have a break.

The ’Speciality’ was a steel British built coaster of riveted construction, with three dry cargo holds. The ship was assigned to carry mostly paper pulp from Norway and Sweden down to the Paper Mills of Bowater and Reeds, which were equipped with deep water jetties for tidal purposes, between Dartford and Gravesend.

The North Sea voyages were tough, but so were the men on board. During my years with ‘Everards’ I was to be signed on and serve on other ships but I always preferred the ‘Speciality’. This type of ship was powered by a four-cylinder, two-stroke ‘Newbury’ internal combustion diesel engine which was raw water cooled. The engine was started on ‘ahead’ and ‘astern’ by compressed air which was topped up by two auxiliary air compressors, however this type of engine, like many others of that time, had an auxiliary air compressor installed at the forward end of the crankshaft outside its main entablature, also the same engine had a bilge, sea-water and lub oil circulating pump in case of a black-out. The Newbury Main Engine was trouble free, and so were the auxiliary generators which were also Newbury but four stroke internal combustion engines.

On board these ships simplicity was at its best, nothing was in automated form.

Everard ships were to be seen all over the British Isles and the continent.

image%204.jpg

M.V. Speciality

Many deck and engine-room crews knew each other very well, and many times they even sailed together

From the ‘Zillertal’ bar on the Rieperbahn to the ‘Laughing Cow’ in Skippers Street, Antwerpen to Rotterdam’s China Town, Everard crews were to be found having their well-earned run ashore followed with the occasional brawl after a good piss-up.

But the best one I recall was at old ‘Ma Ryan’s Bar’ in Limerick, when the boys of the ‘Speciality’ fought it out with the crews of the ‘Centurity’. The bar was left a right fracas, a few of the lads finished up in Hospital, but at the end they had to make it up and pay for the damage done. It was an expensive punch-up alright!!

The trouble always brewed over women, after the lads having downed a few pints of the ‘rough stuff’.

The North Sea crews were a tough bunch of lads alright and for a woman they go ‘overboard’. I cannot leave out the episode when one of them which the crews use to call – ‘Phyllis the Syphilis’ – fell overboard between the ship and the jetty, on a cold winter night, fur coat, boots, and all.

But the lads were brave and fished her out, being heavy and wet. Phyllis did dry up, but for that cold and wet evening really taught her a lesson and was never to be seen again. From rumours going around old ‘Ma Ryan’s Bar’, after that episode Phyllis and her friend Breda must have looked at other haunts and never to approach another ship.

Old Ma Ryan was back in business, but the Garda in Limerick were always on patrol down the docks when ever an ‘Everards’ ship came up the Shannon.

Discharging in Limerick either grain or timber was a slow procedure for that time, but the harbour, although small, had to be entered at high water with small space for maneuvering a ship. However this gave us more time in port to carry out the routine necessary maintenance, and have a break ashore.

Beside paper pulp for the Gravesend Paper mills we were carrying and shifting tons of grain, coal and timber across the North Sea and Irish Sea from the Baltic Ports to the west coast of Ireland with the regular voyage up the Shannon river discharging at Limerick.

In all the time I was a second engineer on the Speciality the ship never had a major breakdown or any serious incidents. Life on board was a constant daily routine of maintenance, drills and observance to the current rules and regulations of the day.

On arrival in a port our exciting time was how to outwit the customs and the routine ‘black gang’ searches and rummaging of the vessel.

Many a times I had to close a main sea valve, open a sea chest, and with a ‘little help from my friends’ on board, dry it out and stuff it with booze and cigs while covering it again with old bilge oil and shit until the customs rummage is over.

The worst port in the British Isles for a ‘rummage’ was in Felixstowe where the fat-arsed customs officer Josephine would try to get and