Twenty Years Before the Antenna Mast

Trip: Sixteen

Call Sign:

Company: CP

Specs: 18743 GRT 11000HP

Rank: R/E/O

Joined: St Johns N.B. 10/12/74

Departed: Punta Cardon in Venezuela 22/5/75

Around St Johns Canada (which reminded me somewhat of an old American outback town) are some of the highest tides in the world. Due to geographical factors, they get two tides a day, and each tide can reach 30 feet (10metres) in height. The natural result is that currents and rip tides at various points can be fierce, and navigation needs considerable care to stay on course. The ports have extremely high quays and various ingenious ways of mooring up ships to accommodate this large tidal variation. Climbing up (or down) the gangway can be quite an experience. Leaving the ship at low tide, its almost straight up, as the ship is well below the quay. A few hours later, on coming back to the ship at high tide, its well above the quay and so we still have a hard climb straight up. It's not conducive to drinking too much. On joining this ship, I was asked if I would help in a marathon fault finding exercise. The ship was stuck in port, unable to discharge its oil cargo due to the boilers not being able to be fired up. Almost every tanker has pumps aboard to discharge the cargo. When loading however the pumping is all done from ashore. All the CP tankers had Diesel engines, but the cargo pumps were powered by steam turbines. These required a large boiler, which also powered the deck machinery. At sea the steam was provided by the waste-heat from the main engine exhaust but in port the main engine was stopped, so a separate boiler was required. In this case, an electrical fault would not allow the boiler oil burners to be lit.

This sort of thing cost Money (with a capital M) Port costs, plus running expenses could easily reach 10,000 dollars a day. The engineers and electrician had already spent a day trying to find the problem, without result and were dog-tired. One of the reasons the fault was so difficult to trace being that the installation did not match the drawings. Also, in best marine practice, all wires were the same color (black) and identification sleeves were sometimes missing.

After a good day spent crawling around engine room bilge's (Ugh!), inside control consoles and hanging precariously from bulkheads, we found the fault. It was a waterlogged junction box near the boiler causing an earth. On drying it out, all was well. A case of beer was presented to us as thanks for a job well done. We visited some interesting places on this trip, like Jamaica and Haiti (Port-au-prince) - which must be one of the poorest islands in the Caribbean.