# Hold Cleaning



## jaydeeare

Please excuse my ignorance regarding this.

Browsing through YouTube earlier, I found this video of cleaning a hold on board a bulker prior to taking on grain.

http://youtu.be/q30JIvskxe8

My question is, would this task be carried out by the ship's crew or by a specialist shore based Company?

By the way, that was a huge hold!


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## Alistair Macnab

*Hold Cleaning.....*

On the occasion that the loading berth is in close proximity to the discharging of the previous cargo and the loading dates are imminent, it might be a good idea to hire a hold cleaning contractor to make the cargo space suitable for inspection and prompt loading. This action, of course, would be an added expense to set against the revenue produced by the new cargo.

Dependent upon the nature of the previous cargo will also be an important factor. For instance when changing a cargo space from general cargo to coal, probably all that's needed is a good brush down, the removal of dunnage and spar ceiling, and the checking of the hold drainage system and strum boxes.

Needless to say, when preparing a cargo space for the reverse, i.e. coal to general cargo, much more cleaning will be required probably including a washing down of the entire space with water from a high pressure hose and the subsequent draining and drying of the space, the re-erection of the spar ceiling etc.

In other words, it all depends on the type of cargoes that previously occupied the space, what the next cargo will be, and the time available to make the conversion.

If a sea passage is available between the old cargo and the new, then the ship will be dispatched and the ship's crew will carry out the necessary cleaning. In today's world of small crews this may no longer be a viable alternative to shore contractors but it was, by far, the solution preferred by ship owners in previous times.

Whatever the preference or necessity of hold cleaning, it is customary for the shipper of the new cargo to have the cargo space to be used for his cargo to be inspected by an independent surveyor or perhaps his own superintendent before loading can commence. If the pre-load survey is not passed, then a shore gang may be required to finish the job and there may be local union rules that forbid ship's crew to carry out the operation.

The answer to your question involves many moving parts: nature of previous cargo, nature of new cargo, time available to complete cleaning, size of ship's crew, the attitude of the surveyor, local regulations at the port(s) involved, and local labour customs.

All of these cir***stances apply to dry bulk carriers and tankers but not to container ships which, of course carry the same steel box cargo in all trips.

Environmental protection laws nowadays mandate the disposal of sweepings and dirty water from hold cleaning to be conducted in an approved fashion, again at additional cost. No more dumping of detritus over the side into the ocean!


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## John Briggs

A very comprehensive, lucid and accurate response Alistair.

Made a great deal of money as Mate and even more as Master through hold cleaning for charterers. 
It goes without saying that the crew also did very well but so they should as they did all the work even if it was on Company time.


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## jaydeeare

Thank you Alistair for that excellent reply. 

I was also wondering if all that chemical waste and cleansing water would have ended up in the bilges. Your answer has that covered too.

The cleaning chemical would also need to be checked as well, I suppose for compatibility with the previous cargo to ensure there would be no chemical reaction.

I now have a fuller understanding of one of the jobs on bulker life.

I daresay the Deck Cadets/Apprentices would have had 'hands on' with this task as well.

Thank you too, John.


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## Erimus

As I was mainly involved in ore carriers/bulkers in compatible trades the type and amount of clearing was minimal, often stevedores /works labour would collect balances remaining with a skidloader and crew would shovel into a 'bucket'....however, often these bulkers would be single charter jobs and needed to be handed back for grain or similar...in which case more than simple hosing would take place and sometimes a 'steaming' contractor would be appointed .....prior to survey...

So comments made above are factual and informative, as one would expect!

geoff


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## tiachapman

loaded cement clinker grays in essex to kingston Jamacia ,discharged
holds swept out loaded sugar the next day for silvertown london


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## slick

All,
Not unadjacent was the building of Shifting Boards and Feeders for Grain Cargoes after a General Cargo, if I remember three weeks of hard graft between the Persian Gulf and South Australia.
The day of Inspection by the Australian "On" Surveyor was awaited by all, much nervousness by the Mate and the Captain, it wasn't unknown for the Aussies to pull the lot down with a bull wire and then have the lot rebuilt by local chippies.
Oh, happy days.

Yours aye,

slick


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## kypros

Every vessel that I sailed on prior to taking on grain all work in the holds done by the deck crowd,the chippy helped with sealing the bilge plates and on occasions with the shifting boards,the holds had to be spotless for the port inspectors.KYPROS


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## Pilot mac

Almost exclusively all hold cleaning done by crew in my time, there were exceptions in some ports where local labour regulations prevented the crew from doing the job eg Australia, some USA ports. Don't know what they do these days with all that dirty water, it all used to go overside but doubt if that's the case now. I did sail on a couple of ships with automatic cleaning in the form of a fixed 'gun-clean' system, brilliant in theory but in practise you needed all generators on to power the system and they were rarely all available. This system could deal with large residues of cargo and the massively powerful eductors would quite happily suck and blow the heaviest ores.

Dave


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## jaydeeare

Thanks for all your information on this. They have all been interesting as I was intending going on bulkers with Souters after leaving College, but things just didn't turn out right for me.

I'm now beginning to see another side of these ships I hadn't considered or known about. It still wouldn't have put me off, though. Maybe seeing all the rust on the sides of a lot of these ships might have made me a bit wary, but apparently this was normal on a lot of ore carriers.


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## tunatownshipwreck

I remember a lot of hold cleaning was done at sea, and most of the cleaning in port was a result of failing the inspection, at least with FOC ships. It's probably more the case now.


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## Pilot mac

tunatownshipwreck said:


> I remember a lot of hold cleaning was done at sea, and most of the cleaning in port was a result of failing the inspection, at least with FOC ships. It's probably more the case now.


and did they really fail inspection because they were not clean enough or perhaps fail because the cargo was not ready, anything to delay that lay time clock!

Dave


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## john fraser

Pilot mac said:


> and did they really fail inspection because they were not clean enough or perhaps fail because the cargo was not ready, anything to delay that lay time clock!
> 
> Dave


We failed hold inspection in Wallarroo,Australia.They got shore gangs in Was told the reason was,to create local employment. Seems every ship failed.Worse than that,a payment was to be made to the deck crew if the holds passed.but it seems the charterer knew that they would fail.Charterer was a certain Mr. Gokal


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## robinhood_1984

During my time on coasters we always cleaned our own hold, but then a coaster is a bit different to a huge bulk carrier. After discharge we'd usually proceed to sea with the hatches open slightly for light and sweep out if we'd just discharged a cargo of dry timber or hose and mop off it was a bulk cargo, if weather conditions didn't allow for open hatches we'd simply hang a big spotlight at either end of the hold and carry on. With a 50m long hold it took no more than a few hours with two or three of us doing it. We never failed inspection, but I don't remember ever carrying grain either.


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## John Cassels

Hold cleaning - a real can of worms . biggest worry was to get stevedores to do
a good job of knocking down the coal or ore from up behind frames , tripping brackets , behind hold ladders etc. also to insist that as much residue was discharged as possible. 
Very rarely worked , despite letters of protest , threats to inform receivers of undelivered cargo etc,etc. Usually the crowd was left with backbreaking job of cleaning many largs hold of great amounts of ore residues . UK ore ports and Dunkirk were the worst.


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## Duncan112

"The attitude of the surveyor" - we loaded at AMD Destrehan (Think that's how you spell it) in New Orleans having cleaned AND PAINTED the holds on the Atlantic passage - still failed - the local boys came down did SFA and they passed - well known scam - Lloyds surveyor who I had down for some confirmatories said that if you vacillated about getting the locals in it was off the berth, off hire and a week at anchor.


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## price

I never sailed in a ship where the hold cleaning was performed by contractors. Hold cleaning, erecting and dismantling shifting boards etc. were always carried out ably by the ships' crew. I know that the practise of hiring contractors for the work did happen but, not in any ship that I sailed in. Bruce.


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## kudu

During the 60's with Stag line,we regularly carried bulk cargoes such as manganese,flurospar and a variety of finished steel,up the great lakes to Detroit,Chicago and Cleveland.We then had a couple of days to clean the holds with hoses,cement the bilge covers,and sweep and lift out the residue,on route to the lake head.Either the Canadian ports of Fort William and Port Arthur,of Duluth and Superior.This was hard and wet work,and if manganese had been carried,very heavy.We never as far as I remember,used specialist shore based cleaners.


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## ben27

good day jaydeeare.sm.6th jan.2015.09:20.re:hold cleaning,very interesting post,great video,very interesting replies,regards ben27


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## kewl dude

1970 Fort William and Port Arthur combined into one named City of Thunder Bay. Duluth and Superior are still themselves.

Greg Hayden


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## jaydeeare

ben27 said:


> good day jaydeeare.sm.6th jan.2015.09:20.re:hold cleaning,very interesting post,great video,very interesting replies,regards ben27


Thanks, Ben and to all who have looked in and for all the excellent posts.


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## Supergoods

Back in the dim past of the mid '70's I was working for Fednav in Montreal and went down to the Ben Line Bulker Benhiant to negotiate the crew payment for cleaning the holds.
The Greeks were very good at this and could squeeze the maximum out of the charterers, however for a liner trained master, this was a new experience.
Naturally my first offer was low, but I was expecting a much higher counter. Instead the master accepted it.
I heard he almost had a mutiny when he told the crew what they would be getting.

Ian


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## Mactaf

Believe me no Master wanted a surveyor to fail a clean hold. They would often get hell from the Company. The worst aspects for the crew were when having completed the task an unscrupulous master would use some BS like " safety of the ship" or some other obscure NMB clause in an attempt to avoid compensating the crew having been paid off by the charterers. It wasn't uncommon when the vessel was outside the UK. In the UK a phone call to the NUS usually straightened things out. Obviously the fact that specialist contractors usually had an abundance of extended HP water lances & brushes would make success much more realistic. Chemical Tankers would also have similar problems which would often result in swab hand cleaning in most inhospitable areas like Houston or New Orleans in searing temps.


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## John Briggs

Some Masters appear to have been total bloody idiots.
What skipper in his right mind would want to get the crew offside?
Much better to keep them happy and life was much sweeter.


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## Kingham SJ

Australia could be picky.If the hold inspector was related to the cleaning company and didn't have much work on??????


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## sandhopper

Interesting hold cleaning video. The hold cleaning crews seemed to have full oilskins or partial oilskins as their barrier against either the cargo remains or the cleaning fluid (I am assuming that the cleaning fluid isn't fairy liquid).
Having cleaned tanks not much bigger than a standard bath, I would wear a variety of protective equipment including face visor with blown air and breathing apparatus with its regulator attached to a belt at the waist.
Didn't you bulkers care?


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## lakercapt

On Jebsens "R" class there was a gun clean system to clean the holds and you could also set it to do a certain area again if the first wash was not sufficient.
There was an educator system and the cover plate restricted all but the big bits from going through.
In a post about the holds not passing for some obscure reason and what it really was the cargo was not ready.
I experienced this in Rotterdam as we were to off load from another ship and they had been delayed by bad weather.
The hold were not passed and the surveyor said he would come back next day so I could not tender my NOR.
I told him to come back in 4 hours and the hold were sparkling clean enough to eat a meal off so he had no reason (he did try) not to pass.
We went on hire and two days later the ship arrived.
When the hatches were opened it was very obvious that the grain had suffered water damage. I had the mates take pictures of it and get samples of our own.
On completion of loading I was presented with B/L and asked to sign and I said was going to endorse them that the cargo received was water damaged. The Sh88 hit the fans and when I produced the photographic evidence along with the samples they were besides themselves.
I told the shipper that he tried to pull a fast one on us by refusing the holds being clean thus delaying our NOR so two could act smart.
The ship was delayed and it was only the intervention of the office in Bergen that said I was to sail but not sign clean B/L.
On arrival at the discharge port when I asked the receiver for their B/L that again there was a big flap. There was dust on top of the cargo so it was as we sailed. I showed the photographs we had taken and the samples and that was us exonerated.


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## Davie M

I remember my first trip to sea on the old Baron Maclay. We were on our way to Seven Is. from Liverpool. The previous cargo had been either bagged grain or sugar (I cannot remember which) and us apprentices were sent into one of the holds to clean out the bilges.
The grain/sugar had started to ferment and the smell was horrible and after a short while I was almost three sheets to the wind with the fumes.
It smelled like the old dock in Denny's shipyard in Dumbarton when Hiram Walker discharged into it from the distillary.
Happy days.


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