# Historic ramblings



## zebedee (Dec 19, 2010)

I have, somewhat disconnectedly in that they are under various headings, described my first three “trips” or voyages in the MV Treleven. Now for my fourth trip:
This started in Manchester, by the time we cleared the Manchester Ship Canal it was time to take over my first watch as fourth engineer. In those days no particular technical qualifications were required for this post, promotion to which was based upon experience and aptitude. I was warned that the upper piston guide for number two cylinder was running rather warm! The upper or exhaust piston carried a substantial fore and aft beam to which were attached side rods leading down through the scavenge belt to conventional crossheads within the crankcase. These upper piston guides were grease lubricated, "in the interests of cleanliness", I remember reading somewhere or other. To be fair, forced lubrication would be relatively simple to provide but rather difficult to deal with the return. Of course grease lubrication was much cheaper. Being rather keen, I syringed in a mixture of crankcase oil and flaked graphite. This quantity of oil would have no cooling effect but the graphite would supply a much improved lubrication. I was gratified to find that the temperatures ceased increasing and we arrived at Liverpool without further problems. In Liverpool we proceeded to load 2000 tons of Guinness. Remember this was the late 1950s so containerisation was not even on the horizon and the bottles of Guinness arrived in crates on pallets! A side effect of this was that by about mid-morning all the dockers had to be sent home for their own safety: they were replaced after lunch and a repeat procedure took place. This was duplicated after tea and we got another 2 or three hours work in. Eventually of course we completed loading this cargo and proceeded to Glasgow. En route the guide heating was no more severe than it had been on our way to Liverpool. In Glasgow we proceeded to load 1000 tons of Scotch whisky and due to the vigilance of her Majesty's Customs and Excise not a single bottle of this valuable spirit went adrift! It was decided that once the guide cooled out we should have no more problems in arriving at America. This was true although that particular guide ran warmer than any of the others all the way there. Investigation revealed that at outer centre, where the side rod was under the influence of the crankcase crosshead, if emerged from the scavenge belt centrally in its trunk; whilst at the inner centre where its position was influenced by the upper guide; it was offset to one side. Dismantling the beam assembly revealed that the additional shimming inserted by the shipyard labour in Manchester was all on one side! Re-distributing the 0.010-inch error (say circa 0.40 mm) cured the problem and we had no further heating on that particular guide. Interestingly, my memory says that we did this on the east coast of America although our cargo was destined for the West Coast so I have to presume that we made a preliminary call somewhere, before proceeding through Panama. Our next stop, and here I am on firmer ground, was at Los Angeles specifically at San Pedro here a routine crankcase inspection revealed cooling water dripping from the bottom of number four cylinder. As this cylinder liner was known to be worn to 5.9 out of the allowable 6 mm it was decided to fit the spare cylinder liner. Due to the considerable dismantling necessary to replace a simple O ring we invoked the aid of a couple of fitters and some labourers.
This was just as well as the obvious problem is: where do you put the old liner until you have fitted the new one? Answer: I have no idea after 50 years! We finished at about six o'clock on the third day and the Captain wanted to sail immediately but he was overruled by the Chief Engineer on the perfectly valid grounds that if anything went wrong the engine room staff would be unable to rectify it due to fatigue. Once again we cleared the pilotage by eight o'clock in the morning and yours truly took over the watch with a brand-new cylinder liner. The Chief warned me that I would hear the piston rings whirring up and down as they wore off the high spots that Doxford considered a suitable finish for a cylinder liner. Our next port of call was San Francisco where I was able to get my toothache attended to: I had had this almost since we left the UK and the cure was to keep sipping hot and cold drinks until I got the temperature balance correct! I was taken to a medical building in San Francisco and on the seventh or thereabouts floor I was seen by Doctor One who after an X-ray decided that the nerve was dying and that the tooth would have to come out but as he did not do extractions himself I was referred to Doctor Two on the 25th or thereabouts floor. There I entered the smallest waiting room I have ever been in but the view over the fabulous San Francisco Bay was amazing. In due course I was shown into a vast surgery with a lonely dental chair sat in the middle of the floor. Doctor Two advance upon me with one of the biggest hypodermic syringes I have ever seen, unfortunately he was aiming for the wrong side of my mouth so I grabbed his wrist and protested. "Doctor One has clearly marked this tooth as needing extraction". He pronounced, "I don't care which tooth Doctor One has marked on the chart, have a look at the X-ray" "Oh yes you are right". And the correct tooth was extracted. While I was in the waiting room of Doctor one I came across a magazine dealing with accidents and the one that has really stuck in my mind was that in which a driver making a U-turn was hit by an articulated tractor and trailer: remember this was the middle Fifties and American cars were at their greatest size ever but this did not stop the tractor unit passing straight over the car, flattening it of course and presumably killing the driver outright, the rear wheels of the trailer then ran onto the flattened wreckage, locked up and dragged it along the road! By the time it all came to a standstill the road had worn through the bottom of the car and halfway through the driver. Now you know why I have been reluctant to do U-turns ever since; driving around the block in preference. After this there were other incidents waiting to happen. In, I think, San Diego, the Second Engineer Don, my pal Bob and I decided to take a ferry to the other side of the river “why” I have long ago forgotten. Access to the ferry was via an unmanned turnstile and immediately preceding us two lightly built American Navy ratings showed us how to go through the turnstile two for the price of one; Bob and I thought this was a great idea and we entered the turnstile together-only to discover that turnstiles are one-way valves and our combined bulk was much greater than that of the two ratings! As we could not reverse out; after much sucking in of stomachs and panting we succeeded in falling out of the other side where we discovered that Don and the two ratings were helpless with laughter. 
When we returned to the ship at about 10.30, we were surprised to find that fork trucks were still active we were even more surprised to be offered a lift by one of the drivers and by the time we arrived at the gangway standing precariously upon the forks of course, we realised that we could recognise the drivers faces. Our deck crew was playing dodgems with the fork trucks! Due to their high centre of gravity and small turning circle, capsizes were quite frequent but were easily rectified by the application of a second fork truck. I think it was between Francisco and San Diego that the third engineer heard "a tinkling" in the crank case but was unable to find a cause or source. He duly notified the second engineer when he took over and before he had finished his first cup of tea he also heard "a tinkling" within the crankcase. He was so impressed that he stopped the engine instantly, although dramatic this was not as traumatic as it could have been: since we were coasting, the donkey boiler was in commission as well as the normal exhaust fired one which was normally sufficient at sea but inadequate for standby conditions due to the necessity of running auxiliary steam powered pumps. It was soon discovered that the noise was that of the broken off studs and nuts falling into the crankcase. The two broken off studs and the nuts had originally secured a substantial bracket to the crosshead. This bracket carried the lower piston cooling water hinged pipes and fortunately both studs had broken off on the same side of the bracket. Had either of the top two or the bottom two snapped there is little doubt that the inertia loading would have meant the remaining two would soon have suc***bed to metal fatigue and the pipes would have wrapped themselves around the crankshaft with disastrous results as we would not have had sufficient spares to effect a repair. Naturally we had no ee-zeeouts large enough to attempt to remove the studs and our attempt with a left-handed thread locking pin intended for the lower piston securing cap-nut also failed. So we resorted to the traditional method of drilling a hole and chipping away at the shell. The Chief and Third engineers were working as one pair: Don and I worked as a second pair with each pair taking it in turns to work three quarters of an hour at a time. At the end of Don and my first session we had the shell of the stud slack in the hole and we yielded to the Chief and his mate. When we went back in the shell had been driven to the bottom of the hole and riveted flat into position! Don and I removed it and proceeded to attack the second stud with a method which I had discussed with Don while we were waiting our turn: the biggest hole we could drill was about three quarters of an inch in diameter as this stud was originally 1 5/8 inches diameter (say m30) the hole was drilled as far aft as was possible. This left enough metal on the forward side to drill a 1/4 inch hole through the rib, this gave us a very distorted figure-of-8 hole and we cut through the interface with a hacksaw blade. We now had a thin circular shell with a weak line down one side and adjacent to that two substantial ribs: a smart blow with a caulking tool collapsed the entire shell, which we took out and handed to the chief engineer! By this time Don and I had been in there for about 1 1/2 hours as we had declined to come out after our normal interval!
While the Chief and Third engineers fitted new studs and refitted the bracket Don and I checked all the corresponding studs on the other cylinders; fortunately we found no problems and we were able to proceed as intended. Further incidents lay in store for us however. We were due to depart San Diego on Saturday evening and followed the usual procedure: Standby engines: Single up fore and aft: Let go forward: Let go aft: Bridge phone rings: Capt assumes that's the second mate saying all is clear and orders engines half astern! Unfortunately it was the second mate to say that his line was fouled, not only that but the kick astern had taken us partly across the jetty to which the cross-river ferry was already heading! Some rapid reattaching of mooring ropes enabled us to warp our way forward and avoid impeding the ferry. Attempts by the combination of turning gear and mooring winch failed to retrieve any rope at all. Have you ever tried to find a diver at 10:30 on a Saturday night? We had to and eventually one was discovered: when he reported that there were 7& 3/4 turns of rope around the shaft and he reported that a substantial chunk was missing from one of our propeller blades we were quite happy to believe him. We had been followed up the coast port for port by one of the Manchester Liners ships. This also carried general cargo but as Manchester was a textile manufacturing town her cargo was largely clothing and there had been a thriving barter trade between the two vessels. Their suits, shirts and shoes being bartered for our alcohol. One of the most unfortunate results of this was that the carpenter was attacked with a broken bottle the shard of which penetrated his eye socket, fortunately missing his eye completely. By the time we arrive at the pilotage for the Canadian port of Royal new Westminster and the doctor came aboard it was deemed much too late to stitch the wound and the Carpenter was left with a rather nasty scar. We duly arrived in Royal New Westminster, which is a port near Vancouver where we were to load ingots and forest products. We had to move ship one evening after tea up the river, naturally I was in charge of the movement book so this report is all hearsay: there were fishermen on both banks with fishing lines strung across the river but nobody had told them that we were coming. On one side of the bridge the captain was arguing with fishermen while on the other bridge wing the pilot was arguing with other fishermen and in the middle of the bridge the poor Third Mate was staring straight ahead towards the middle of a berthed ship towards which we were heading! He had almost plucked up courage to ring down "slow engines" on his own initiative, when the Pilot turned around, took in the situation and ordered "Full Astern", this galvanized the Captain into action who swung around and immediately ordered "Double Full Astern"! Shortly after I had written all this down the bridge telephone rang as the Third Mate passed a message: “Do not stop the engine!” I was able to reassure him that we had no intention of stopping the engine and that anyway the Chief Engineer was on the controls and so I had no influence whatever on events. It transpired that we stopped with only a few yards to spare much to the relief of one of the crew on the other ship who was looking out of his porthole while he got dressed to go ashore! Apparently he saw our bows heading straight for him with no reduction in speed right up to the last moment when we sort of skidded to a halt. Further up the coast, possibly in Canada, a variation on playing dodgems was invented,
At this loading port, special low little tractors with very wide axles were in use. Once again a competition developed to see who could jump their tractor the furthest off the loading platform which was about 4 feet high! I have no idea who won the competition but I do know that there were very many bent axles the next day. Just see what fun containerisation has deprived us of!
Lionel


----------



## alaric (Feb 27, 2012)

A wonderful ramble Lionel.
How lucky we were to have been at sea in those pre- container days.


----------



## John Briggs (Feb 12, 2006)

Great memories Lionel. Those were the good times at sea.
I went Master on Treleven when she was sold to Manners Navigation of Hong Kong in 1968.


----------

