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OUR PROBLEMS BEGIN
I can’t remember exactly when it happened, but our watch were in
our bunks, and it was night time. The ship was going through its
usual gyrations, and we were getting thrown about all over the
place. As on all other nights, we turned in, in the knowledge that
sooner or later, sheer exhaustion would send us to sleep. In some
ways, being lifted twenty or thirty feet into the air, and then
crashing down into the sea can even be a little exhilarating. You
feel the ship rising, and then at the top of its lift, with propeller
racing, the motion ceases for a fraction of a second, then everything
starts to come down. For a few seconds you feel as if you are
floating on air, then the ship “bottoms out” with an almighty crash,
you regain all your (apparent) lost weight, and the whole process
starts all over again. It was at the bottom of one of these cycles that
it happened. Instead of just the usual jarring crash, there was also
an unusually loud and metallic “clang”.
We knew instantly that something different had happened, but we were not sure just what it had been. There were one or two “odd” noises within the ship, almost as if the propeller shaft was groaning,
then the engines stopped. Whilst the (comparative) silence was a
relief of sorts, it didn’t take us long to realise that here we were, in
a very severe storm, and the engines had stopped. Almost
`simultaneously, we all sat up in our bunks and looked around at
each other. It didn’t take us long to get dressed, and up on deck
where we looked for the man on watch who should have been in
the messroom, having a smoko. He was not to be seen, so we
assumed that he had been called up to the bridge, which, as we
found out was indeed the case.
At this time, about five minutes or so had elapsed since the “big
bang”, and we could feel the “attitude” of the ship changing, and
the movements getting much more erratic. When a ship faces a
storm that is too much for it, the standard procedure is to head the
ship into the weather, so that the ship is head on to the storm. To
do this, the ship needs to have “way” on her. Basically, this means
that the ship must be moving forward through the water so that the
rudder can be used to steer her “into the wind”. Once the engines
had stopped, the ship was no longer moving forward through the
water; therefore there was no means of steering the ship, and so she
just went whichever way the seas dictated. Unfortunately for us,
(and quite predictably,) the seas swung the ship around so that we
were beam on to the gigantic swell. With no means of steering the
ship back into the weather, we just had to “lump” it! Everything
that had previously not been lashed down now began to move, so
our immediate job was to “ship” everything that hitherto had been
“unshipped”. Fortunately, because of the awful weather we had
been experiencing, there was not too much to see to.
By this time, the man on “standby” had returned to the messroom,
and informed us that the engineers thought that the “tail end” of
the propeller shaft had been bent, and that was why they had shut
down the engines. Someone from the engine room was about to
come aft and look over the stern, to see if anything could be
discovered from a first hand look at the propeller. We were told to
get lifelines ready to attach to the person who was about to look
over the stern. To look at the propeller, one would need to lean out
over the ship’s rails to a fairly dangerous level, so, considering the
much increased gyrations of the ship now that we were stopped,
lifelines for the person were essential.
The “appointed person” duly came aft, and we attached appropriate
lines to him. He was almost lying on the deck, with his head and
shoulders stuck out from between the two bottom rails, and he had
a large flash light. Within a few seconds, he was back aboard with
the verdict that one of the propeller blades had dropped off, but
three blades were still intact. Well, at least we knew what the
problem was! We assumed that calls would be made for towage
into Halifax, or whichever port was nearest. (We had no idea of
exactly where we were, as the navigating officer had not seen the
sun since we left Liverpool, and all navigation had been done by
“dead reckoning” which, as far as I can ascertain, is a sophisticated
form of guessing!)
The “appointed person” who had looked over the side, then went
back to the bridge and had discussions with the Captain and
presumably, the Chief Engineer. We retired to the messroom, and
made a strong pot of tea. Hardly had we sat down when, much to
our surprise, (and relief,) we felt and heard, the propeller start to
turn again. It wasn’t as noisy as it had been, and it wasn’t turning
quite as fast, but it was turning, and that meant that the ship could
now be steered “into the wind”, and that meant that as long as we
faced the weather, there was much less of a threat to the safety of
the ship.
As the ship gathered way, we could feel the roll of the ship
becoming less violent, even though the pitching and tossing were
every bit as bad as they had been prior to the “big bang”. When I
say the ship “gathered way”, I doubt whether the ship actually
gained any distance, but the action of the propeller allowed the
rudder to do its work, and face the ship into the weather. For all we
knew, we could even have been drifting backwards, but what
counted was that we would have been drifting backwards whilst
facing the weather, and that made life much easier and safer for us!
I suppose that driving a propeller that was out of balance must have
put some sort of extra strain on the propeller shaft bearings, but this
was not our problem, and anyway, we thought, the damage had
been done. If we listened carefully, we could detect the imbalance
in the turning of the screw, and as long as it was easing the
immediate danger to the ship, we were not too concerned about any
long term consequences that might eventuate.
When morning came around, we could look over the stern and see
our new, remodelled, three bladed propeller for ourselves. One had
to be careful in leaning over the side with the ship rising up, and
dropping down into the troughs so quickly. However, the “empty
space” could quite easily be discerned, and we thought that it
would just be a question of time before the weather abated, and the
ship could proceed under it’s own steam, and at a reduced speed to
New York.
Of course, the talk in the messroom was of previous experiences of
propeller blades dropping off, or even, in extreme circumstances,
the loss of the complete propeller! Apparently neither incident was
as rare as one might have thought! Since a ship’s propeller is a very
“personal” item, (a propeller is manufactured for a specific hull
shape,) many ships carry a spare propeller, usually in an out of the
way portion of the deck. I had seen them on other ships I had been
on, and often wondered why on earth a ship should carry a spare
propeller since there would be no chance of shipping it whilst the
ship was at sea. Well, now I knew.
Another subject that came up with a little more frequency than
hitherto was the subject of “Salvage”. I think we all had some
vague idea that as long as a member of the crew (usually the
Captain) stayed aboard a ship in distress, then any vessel that came
to the rescue could only claim towing fees rather than salvage or
prize money. Since none of us had any first hand experience of
these sorts of situations, we allowed ourselves to remain in
ignorance, and got on with our job of trying to get the ship to New
York.
To think that we were out of trouble, or even “over the worst”, was
optimistic - at least for the Deck Department. Indeed, our troubles
were only just beginning. It was true that we could now steer the
ship into the weather, but with the very slow revs of the screw, and
the still extremely rough weather, keeping the ship on course, (into
the wind) was no easy task, and sometimes well nigh impossible
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