A Russian timber ship leaving Abidjan, West Africa, in the late 70s. The tropical rain has soaked into the deck cargo of logs, causing a heavy list to starboard. The logs took several weeks to load, under the blistering West African sun. They would be glad to get to sea again! Our turn was yet to come, we were halfway through our first week of discharging general cargo, and that would be followed by three weeks in the river loading logs.
Bob

 

Glad to go to sea with a list like that !

 

Well, it wouldn't sink, would it? It would soon dry out! The tug is probably pulling it over a bit more as well as it turns them round.
Bob

 

British salvage tug Typhoon, and a British warship. Falklands Islands, 1982.
Bob

 

Hannoverland - Durban - early 1970s.
Bob

 

Bob - the thing that really comes across in these pictures is that you understand your subject and how to present it in the best way. It's a pleasure to see this sort of work.

 

Thanks,
I just took these photographs as they presented themselves to me. There was no planning. Often, I didn't have much time to think about it as the scenes were changing every minute. I took the one of the Hannoverland as I was going ashore, and as I passed, I just thought it was a mighty impressive view.
Bob

 

Somewhere I have that view of QEII in Bremerhaven being refitted. Looked like something from a 1930s cruise poster.

 

Reminds me of the old WWII pic of the Ohio entering Valetta harbour.

 

The Ohio photograph was a very famous image.
Bob

 

Bob,
Forgive a landlubber question. how much weight would be needed to make the Russian 'logger' list like that? Second question - if it was the wet wood causing the list why did the wood get that wet just on one side of the ship? I assume that driving rain from one side would still have wet the whole cargo.

Sorry if these are dumb questions.

MickLL

 

The torrential rain in West Africa is really very heavy indeed during the rainy season, and adding weight to the deck cargo would make timber ships lis, by just adding weight above the deck, but it soon drained off. The Russian is probably not as bad as all that, the tug was pulling it round and that probably made it worse. They may well have corrected it before they left. One never wants a ship to list, but I sailed in one for 11 years that always seemed to lean over in port, but was OK once we got out to sea!
Bob

 

I've never been a seafarer myself - my uncle and a couple of cousins went to sea and a friend of mine trained to be an RO (at the IMRTC College at Brooks Bar in Manchester) - but I'm still fascinated by your pictures.

Thanks for posting them.

Cheers, Jeff

 

Here is the old RMS St. Helena, at Avonmouth in the 80's, fully loaded with general, cargo and 76 passengers, ready to sail for Las Palmas, Ascension Island, St. Helena and Cape Town. Only 3,150 gross tons, and 300 feet long. If you look closely, you will see that she is leaning towards the quay. But would always straighten up when we got into deep water. I sailed in this ship between 1979 and 1990, and we had our honeymoon voyage aboard in 1987. I have sailed in much greater, and famous ships than this, but this one was my favourite.
Bob

 

Jeff,
I trained at Wray Castle, Lake Winderemere, that was an offshoot of Brooks Bar, and started by Mr. Tomlinson, ex Brooks Bar Principal.
Bob

 

My friend tells many tales of his time at Brooks Bar. After he completed his training and received his 'ticket' he immediately went off at a tangent and became an accountant! He never went to sea as a radio officer, although he was on twenty four hours notice of being called-up during the Falklands war.

To this day he can still bang out Morse at a frightening rate of knots and always writes in extremely legible block capitals (which he says is another habit that remains from his days at Brooks Bar). He maintains that the easiest and most elegant things to send using Morse code are swear words!

Cheers, Jeff

 

Rolling home. There was no danger, apart from that of falling over, but it could be quite wearing. Fortunately, it did not often last very long. This was taken in the trade winds between Cape Town and the island of St. Helena, in 1989.
Bob

 

Cripes, that's some roll. Love the St Helena. I was not conscious that freighters took passengers until working with Townsend Thoresen in the '80s. Many people preferred the freighters. We took one from Catania to Valletta recently and only drawback was not knowing which berth it was going to come into in Sicily and having to drag baggage a half mile at midnight to catch it. Then being unloaded through the truck deck in the freight port in Malta with no buses, taxis or anything to get us away from the port. In the end the ship called a fleet of taxis for us all. But on board was fine.

 

St. Helena was a Class I passenger/cargo liner, although she did look like a cargo ship. The passenger cabins all had en-suite bathrooms, and the ship was fully air-conditioned. We carried a qualified surgeon and full entertainmenrs were provided for passengers every evening, with all sorts of activities on deck during the day, weather permitting. Our chef was the ex head chef from the large Union-Castle liner RMS Windsor Castle, in which a lot of us had sailed before the Union-Castle line was wound up in 1978. Here is my Utube presentation of the St. Helena, inside and out.
PS. On the first black & white image, that is me on the left, sitting next to our lady assistant purser on fancy dress evening.

Bob

 

Returning to the St. Helena from HMS Ledbury whilst at sea, during the Falklands episode, 1982. A few seconds after I took this photograph, I had to leap out of the rubber boat onto the ladder hanging down the side!
Bob