# Chart Folios



## Julian Calvin (Feb 2, 2011)

How many charts did we carry on world wide operations?
Started off with Elder Dempster so only carried charts for Europe and West Coast of Africa. Then was on the round the world service so saw significant increase in charts required.
Last voyage was a French Govt charter on the Myrmidon to the South Pacific.
seem to remember that we carried around thirty folios with world wide charts.
Chart corrections were a nightmare, even with the new tracings that were sent out.
Can anyone remind me of roughly how many charts that would have been.
Did the tramp companies carry world wide charts or just take delivery as per charter.


----------



## randcmackenzie (Aug 31, 2005)

All Denholm ships carried world wide charts, adjusted a bit for ship size. For a cargo ship (tramp) usually about 2000 charts, 25/30 folios.
No tracings then either!

B/R


----------



## John Cassels (Sep 29, 2005)

randcmackenzie said:


> All Denholm ships carried world wide charts, adjusted a bit for ship size. For a cargo ship (tramp) usually about 2000 charts, 25/30 folios.
> No tracings then either!
> 
> B/R


Can second that . Only number I can remember was the Jersey Bridge and that was 27 folios.


----------



## makko (Jul 20, 2006)

And nowadays, present day "tramps" hauling steel products, grain, fertilizer, etc., all have ECDIS, not such a problem! The Swires ships still carry full paper charts AND take noon sights!

Rgds.
Dave


----------



## taffe65 (May 27, 2007)

makko said:


> And nowadays, present day "tramps" hauling steel products, grain, fertilizer, etc., all have ECDIS, not such a problem! The Swires ships still carry full paper charts AND take noon sights!
> 
> Rgds.
> Dave


When I was "geny" man old paper charts were recycled into paper liners which were in turn fitted to glacier centrifugal filters plumbed into the lub oil system ,just wondering what the modern alternative is Dave.The amount of "crud" they removed from the lub oil was incredible and a gentle prising of the liner with attached crud made cleaning easier and faster, used to polish up the geny lub oil in no time.


----------



## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

For the first few voyages out of the yard, ss Regent Pembroke/GNJH suffered from horrendous levels of vibration. Our main task was carrying 63,000 tons of crude oil from the PG (Ras Tanura) to the Pointe a Pierre refinery in Trinidad but we carried several folios of charts for other parts of the world, held in canvas folders stowed in the special drawers in the vast chartroom behind the wheelhouse.

After several trips on that run, during one ballast passage to the PG, we were advised that after loading we would probably be discharging at one or more South American ports. So our on-the-ball 2nd Mate decided to get that folio of charts out and make sure that all the corrections were up to date.

When he untied the tapes and folded back the canvas cover he was surprised to see that the charts were enclosed in some fine, fluffy, white packing material. Most unusual! He got an even bigger shock when he started to remove the charts from the folder because many of them had large areas where the printing was very faint, or even totally missing. Checking other folders showed the same problem.

It seems that as a result of the constant vibration, the charts had been moving against one another inside the folders and in effect rubbing the ink off the paper. The fluffy material was the 'rubbings' that had been removed by the abrading effect.

Lots of new charts, flown out to meet us at the next port, solved the immediate chart problem. It took an unscheduled drydock, where they added lots of extra steel and welding to stiffen the stern end and rudder mounting, to resolve the vibration problems.


----------



## Varley (Oct 1, 2006)

Interesting and extraordinary. However when spares etc are secured to the ship's shell there should be a wooden cradle or packing between it and the shell plating otherwise a similar thing can happen only the rubbings in this case may get rather wet.


----------



## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

David, the vibrations on that ship were of fantasy proportions, made even more unbelievable because she was steam turbine propelled. Bear in mind that the chartroom was in the midships accommodation, not aft near the engine room. Down aft some of the engineers and crew couldn't close their cabin doors at sea because the door frames moved with the vibration and opened the gap between door and frame, preventing the latch from engaging. They couldn't just use the hook and eye provided to keep the door open, they had to tie the hooks to the eyes.

The engineer's changing room had a table in the centre. One day the engineer going on watch was unable to open the door from the alleyway into the changing room. He rang down to the engineer on watch and asked him to come up and bring tools to try and open it from the other side.
When the on-watch guy got to the top of the ladders, he couldn't open the door from the engine room into the changing room. The brackets supporting the changing room ceiling had suffered fatigue failure and the entire ceiling had fallen down. It didn't reach the deck but landed on the table, filling the entire room at table top level and fitting snugly behind the two inward-opening doors, preventing them from moving.

The ship was single prop but the vibration problem was nothing to do with the engine or the prop but resulted from the use of a skegless rudder, the rudder having no lower bearing, just a single top mounting. That left several metres of rudder flapping about (literally) in the immediate vicinity of the propeller. The side-to-side force transmitted to the hull at the poop by the huge flapping steel blade is difficult to imagine but it had to be seen to be believed. 

And that was in service. As a new build we had to be towed back into the Tyne off our first sea trials because the rudder bearing shook loose. Trials were delayed by several weeks while 160 tons of steelwork were add to strengthen the surrounding hull structure.

Life was never dull.


----------



## taffe65 (May 27, 2007)

"Holy Tintinnabulation! Batman" , that level of vibration must have buggered up any spares with bearings or standby m/c due to the brinelling effect.God knows what it done to ship staffs physiology, hope the bar optics were suitable fixed to the bulkheads.


----------

