GETTING READY FOR SEA
My first sight of
St. Clears
was just as I had imagined her to
be. She was a modern cargo boat, with flush deck and single centre
super structure, which housed the funnel and the bridge. She was
already loaded almost down to her 'marks', and the
Dockers were
still very busy on board, loading huge boxes on each hatch (which
were already battened down and ready for sea,) two large boxes
almost covering the entire area of each hatch. We soon discovered
that the boxes contained
fighter planes
in 'knock down' form, i.e.,
they only required assembly of the parts contained in each box, and
they were "ready to go".
I was delighted to discover that our
'Fo'c's'le
was
aft, and not, as
the name implies, actually up
for'ard.
This was the first time I had
been on a ship where the (Deck) crew slept aft. (As I later
discovered, it is not all I had thought it to be, with the constant
whine of the propeller shaft whilst at sea!) I was further delighted
to
find out that we were berthed only three to a cabin - undreamed of
luxury! Because of the watches we would be keeping - two
AB's (Able Seamen)
and an
Ordinary Seaman to each watch, and the others on Day Work
- we sorted ourselves out into one watch for each cabin. Our Mess
room was at Main Deck level, and the accommodation was one deck
down.
We soon discovered that despite the advanced state of loading, the
ship would not be sailing for at least a couple of days. Because the
airplane boxes occupied the space usually taken by the derricks, the
derricks had been 'topped' right up to the vertical position, and we
had to make sure they were firmly lashed there. There was still
much to be done on deck, and we set about the job of clearing things
away, and taking on board stores of all sorts. Food of course was the
main item, but there were also plenty of Deck and Engine room
stores to be brought aboard. Since the Dockers were responsible for
lashing the huge boxes on the hatches, we were confined to other
duties.
Welders were brought aboard, they were engaged in welding short
sections of pre formatted railway lines complete with sleepers, on
either side of both the fore decks and the after decks. At some stage,
the huge heavy - lift floating crane came alongside, at the same time,
four
steam locomotives
were shunted alongside the ship on the dock
side. The Dockers carried out the very slow and precise job of
loading the locomotives. This was done under the watchful eye of
the
Chief Office.
They placed one on each side of the fore deck,
and one on each side of the after deck, four in all. Then began the
job of securing them against any movement that could have been
started by the ship's motion whilst at sea. Large steel chocks were
placed under the front and back of the wheels where they rested on
the short lengths of railway line. These were then welded into place.
Then the job of lashing the locos began. They not only had to be
lashed to prevent any forward or sideways motion, they also had to
be lashed and shored to prevent them toppling over in the event of
heavy seas causing extreme rolling of the ship. The job of securing
the locomotives took quite some time, and several drums of small
diameter wire were used for the job.
Eventually, St. Clears had a complete cargo, and at last we
could clear away, and make ready for sea. Having loaded these four
huge steam engines, (plus, no doubt, many other items already
below decks in the holds containing large masses of steel,) it became
necessary for the ship's
compass
to be adjusted before we could
proceed to sea, since such large placement of bulk steel would have
caused the ship's compass to swing away from it's proper
(magnetic) setting. This compass adjustment was to be carried out
outside the confines of the
River Mersey, and off the coast of
North
Wales.
Compass adjusting is a highly specialized job, and for this
purpose, we took on board a person who specialized in such work. I
think we called the practice
"Swinging Ship".
We locked out of the docks, and into the Mersey, then sailed for
several miles out of the river to a place within sight of the coast of
North Wales. Here, the
Compass Adjuster
took over, and directed
the ship to sail in several directions, each course plotted very
carefully as he took bearings from different points on the shore line.
After each short course and bearing, he would come into the
wheelhouse and adjust the long bar magnets which are placed under
the compass and within the
binnacle.
As it happened, I spent over
one hour at the wheel during these adjustments. Not only was this
process most interesting from my point of view, it worked as a great
introduction to my steering skills on the ship.
This was my first trip as a
Senior Ordinary Seaman
on a ship where
I would be expected to take my turn on the wheel as a matter of
course. My last efforts at steering a ship had taken place some
eighteen months previously when I had been a Deck Boy on a tanker
called the
British Faith.
Then, I had
been allowed to take a turn on the wheel under the watchful eye of
an AB on a Saturday afternoon whilst the ship was in a homeward
bound convoy in the
North Atlantic.
That episode had ended in
disaster when I had become confused between the moving compass
card and the stationary
"Lubbers Mark" on the rim of the compass. I
had begun chasing the compass card, and thus sending the ship off
course. Fortunately, the Second Officer had been keeping a close
eye on what I had been doing, (the AB had been allowed to go down
below for a smoke) and charged me off the wheel before I could
have done any real damage.
Since then I had not been on a ship where the crew, other than
designated
Quartermasters
were called upon to steer the ship. I was
certainly not going to tell anyone that I had never actually taken a
turn at the wheel before, so it was with a certain amount of
trepidation that I went up to the bridge at two PM just as if I had
always done it. My previous disastrous attempt at steering was not
in vain. I had thought about it many times since, and this time, I had
a very clear image of the compass card and the "Lubbers Line" in
my mind. I had repeated over and over again to myself that "The
Lubbers Line, despite its appearance of being fixed, is actually the
part that moves", and that "The compass card which (especially in
this case of compass adjustment) often swings around considerably,
is the one that stays still".
As it happened, the Compass Adjuster was very friendly, and helped
me considerably (I often wonder if he knew just how much!) by
telling me that he would keep the ship on a certain course for a
minimum of time whilst he took bearings, then he would give me
instructions to keep "…that lighthouse (or whatever) fine on the port
bow…" whilst he made further adjustments. The weather was also
quite good, and with all the different changes of course, I soon
found myself becoming quite competent at altering course, and
holding a desired course for those few essential moments whilst
"The Man" did his work.
During the time I spent on the wheel that day, I heard The
Captain
telling the
Pilot
that the ship was a
turbine ship,
and that this fact
had to be taken into consideration when "conning" the ship
especially in confined waterways. My impression was that extra care
needs to be taken, and allowances need to be made because the
propeller neither starts nor stops its rotation as quickly as that on a
triplicate expansion (piston engine) ship.
I had always thought that turbines were only fitted in the larger and
faster passenger ships,
(Queen Mary and
Queen Elizabeth
among others,) and of course, on many of the ships of
the Royal Navy. From memory, I don't remember the
St. Clears
being particularly fast. I think our speed when travelling
alone was somewhere in the region of ten to twelve knots which was
fairly average for cargo boats built in the 1930's. Maybe it was a
question of reliability or economy.
Another interesting aspect of
St. Clears
was that the boilers
could be fired with either
coal or oil.
The ship was owned by the
South American Saint Lines,
a firm that was based in
Cardiff,
right
in the middle of the Welsh Coal Fields. In the years before the war
specialist bunkering companies kept large deposits of coal in various
parts of the world to provide
bunkers
for the world's coal burning
merchant ships. The ships of the South American Saint Lines would
take out a full cargo of coal to be deposited at various ports on the
River Plate and in the
Falklands.
During these outward bound
voyages the ships would burn coal in their furnaces. Having
deposited the coal, the ships would then use oil bunkers for the
return trip to the UK. For this purpose, the ships were fitted with
fuel oil tanks as well as coal bunkers.
During this trip we used oil exclusively. For our outward bound
voyage, some of the ship's freshwater tanks were filled with fuel oil
to give the ship a greater range without the need to re fuel. As we
were soon to discover, the ship was bound for
Port Said, the
Suez Canal,
Port Tewfik,
Aden, and eventually
Abadan and
Basra where
there is all the oil we would need. With hindsight I can only imagine
that the people who organized these things were at that time, more
intent on preserving large quantities of oil in Europe for the pending
invasion, than keeping large quantities in places like Port Said. I
imagine that with convoys of some twenty or more ships arriving in
port at the same time, it would have been stretching resources to
have to bunker them all at once.
My St. Clears Voyage is continued in
Part Three:
A Regular Helmsman
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