Twenty Years Before the Antenna Mast

Trip: Twenty Nine and Thirty

Call Sign: ZFCO

Company: CP

Specs: 14087 GRT 8000 BHP

Rank: R/E/O

Joined: Durban South Africa 13/4/78

Resigned Articles: Oshawa Canada 29/5/79

I flew out to Durban via Nairobi and Johannesburg, being met by an agent in Durban and taken to the ship. The other Radio Officer being picked up from the ship at the same time and taken to the airport, so I only had about a 20-minute hand over. These short handovers were quite common as ships are often delayed or miss a tide, causing timetables to be compressed and then flights to be missed. A planned relaxed 4 or 5 hour hand over frequently being compressed into 20 hectic minutes, with the agent hopping about looking at his watch and worrying about losing a flight.

The Hamilton was rather an interesting ship. She was small enough to get into the smaller ports and was able to discharge herself with her own cranes. This made her a good candidate for charters to small out of the way harbors, or even discharging into barges in rivers. At various times prior to joining, I had contact with Phil ZS5RJ both from home and from various ships. We used this present opportunity to meet up. I also met up with a number of the Durban radio amateurs, one of whom (ZR5AE) took me around a local game park. I took part in a number of "bries" or barbecues and generally was given a great time. It was the annual general meeting of the South African Radio League, taking place in Durban this year. I was invited as a guest and was made extremely welcome. One amateur, Ken Cousins, managing director of one the largest insurance companies in Durban (The Provincial I think), arrived on the quayside in a gleaming white Jaguar, and asked for me. This impressed the Crew and Junior Officers no end! On leaving, I managed to maintain contact with the Durban 2meter repeater for 3 days, a distance of around 1000 miles WITH A 2WATT WALKIE-TALKIE FROM THE BRIDGE WING. I don't know if this is a world 2meter walkie-talkie DX record, but it must be a close second. There was a large stable high-pressure system covering the area, and anomalous propagation was evident on the radar and the ships VHF R/T systems.

We discharged at St Johns New Brunswick where I met up with Donna and her two sons who used to live in Lahr. We had a nice trip over to Nova Scotia by ferry, and despite the bad weather, it was a very enjoyable stay. Then it was up the seaway to Toronto. The trip up the St Lawrence to Duluth Minnesota was very interesting. The scenery was magnificent. About the only disadvantage was that we each had a chemical toilet in our cabins and were forbidden to use our usual ones. The ships sanitary system did not conform to the stringent standards of the St Lawrence waterway, so we had to close it down. All rubbish had to be collected in large bins instead of the usual practice of putting it in weighted bags and throwing it overboard. The bins were periodically emptied during our trip. At one point we were in thick fog on Lake Superior. The pilot saw many small "blips" on our radar that he treated as fishermen's boats. He used up quite a bit of nervous energy in dodging them. Then the fog cleared a bit and we found he had been dodging seagulls. They looked just like small boats on the radar in fog!

A friend of mine, Jim, who used to be based at the NATO base in Lahr (Germany), was living near Oshawa in Ontario. When we stopped there to bunker, he came down to the ship, and we had a very merry meeting, with rather more than several beers. I met many friendly radio amateurs in Duluth, where once again amateur radio opened many doors for me. One was a Doctor and amateur Pilot. He took me for a flight North of Duluth to where there are many lakes. We also passed over a huge open cast iron ore mine. The ore trains were frequently miles long, taking huge quantities down to Lake Superior, where it was loaded into "Lakers" for shipping elsewhere. The well known "Edmund Fitzgerald" immortalized by Gordon Lightfoot in a song, was one such "Laker" which sank in a storm, taking all of her crew with her. The trains, sometimes containing thousands of tons of ore are pulled by some of the most powerful locomotives in the world, but sometimes still required three or four engines coupled together.

There is a museum in Duluth where they and some of the earlier passenger engines and carriages can be seen. The largest steam locomotive in the world is preserved there. It is called the Mallet and contained two boilers, an automatic coal feeding system for the firebox and weighed somewhere around 200 tons. It was specially designed to haul the iron ore trains, and is a very impressive piece of machinery. The engine is so long that the boilers had to be specially mounted so the engine could go around curves safely. The area is famous for its Taconite pellets, which are high-grade iron ore mixed with clay and formed into small balls. They are clean, relatively dust free, and can be loaded and discharged easily. We sometimes used to carry them on the big bulk carriers.

Our forward receiving antenna was hit by lightning whilst we were alongside in Duluth. It reportedly took off like a rocket with a little trail of smoke, arched high into the air and fell over the side. I was ashore when it happened and returned aboard later that afternoon. I didn't believe the 2nd Mate when he told me and was convinced my leg was being pulled. On getting up to the bridge, I looked at the foremast through some binoculars, and sure enough, there was no antenna! I went up the mast to have a closer look. The massive brass base was still there, with what looked like scratch marks around where the screws holding the fiber glass vertical section inside used to be. The coax cable to the receiver looked like the insulation had been cut back by a knife. Little sign of burning except inside the brass base which was all black. No other damage had occurred. It was lucky the receivers were not burned out but the 600 feet of coax cable between the antenna and the radio room probably absorbed the surge. The interesting thing is that we were berthed almost under a large road suspension bridge, much higher than the ship. I never could understand how the lightning hit us instead of the bridge.

Sometimes the ship was moved around without notice so that other ships could use the berth. This happened here. I returned from a trip ashore with Duane a local radio amateur and fire captain, only to find the ship gone! We could see it serenely sailing out of the harbor. I had a quick panic, then phoned the local agent. He assured me it was not leaving, just going around to the other side of the harbor, to another berth. This surprise move caught a number of the crew whom where also ashore, by surprise, so I was not alone in my consternation. Being left behind by a surprise sailing is one fear all seamen have.

Theoretically, a ship cannot sail at all without its radio officer, but I would not like to put it to the test.

One of our Deck Cadets called Malcolm was very interested in collecting number plates from cars and trucks. He had a few of them from various countries stuck to the bulkhead in his cabin. They really looked quite decorative. One evening we went ashore together and had rather more than a couple of drinks in various bars. The way back led through the railway shunting yards (actually it didn't, but that was the short cut over the fence). On the way back from the bar in the early hours of the morning we saw some parked cars on a road next to some railway sidings. It was very dark, and no one was around, so we carefully unscrewed about three of the car plates with a screwdriver that Malcolm "just happened to find in his pocket". He hid them in his jacket and we walked (or rather staggered) back to the ship. The plates had pride of place in the Cadets cabin after we had sailed. (It was not wise to display them before in case any curious "visitors" noticed them.)