# Dorinda



## Cpt Dick Brooks (May 13, 2013)

I first came across the Lowestoft trawler, Dorinda, when I was working out of Mina Hamria, between Dubai and Sharjar. She had just arrived from Bahrain, after delivering a deck-cargo of a crane that she had brought out from the UK. The young owner had converted her from a Class 10 trawler to a Class 7 cargo ship, replacing all the ten inch portholes with 21 inch man-ports, in creasing the headroom and fitting larger doors. She had been shot-blasted and repainted dark green, and had a full British board of trade Merchant Navy crew. I think she was registered at Lowestoft, as that is from where she originally sailed from in England.
The young owner had spent a fortune on her, fitting her out as a freighter to work in the Persian Gulf. All of the weather-deck housing aft of the engine room had been gutted, and then fitted out as a diner, with a counter from the galley to serve the crew their meals. She was also fitted out with full air conditioning... a must have in Dubai to remain human. I had fitted Dauntless Star out with air conditioning, after I sold her to an Arab shipping company, as part of my contract to work as her captain for another two years. 
It was in the very hot summer of 1976, where the temperature in Dubai reached 64 degrees Celsius. My heart went out to her crew, who were chipping and painting during the heat of the day, as if they were working Home Trade. My Shri Lankan crew worked out on deck from eight in the morning until eleven, then from four in the afternoon until six in the evening, spending the heat of the day in their air conditioned quarters. With only a few cargoes available to them, as they were competing against flat-top barges and local sailing craft, her British crew were repatriated back to the UK at the end of their contract, never to return. She took on a Pakistani crew, along with her young British owner, for a quarter of the price.
Mina Hamria was only a small harbour, dredged right out of the desert after a rectangle of piles were driven in. The outer sea wall was made up of concrete stavits, to give shelter from the prevailing northerly wind, with a breakwater angled towards the north-east for the seaward entrance. Only oil and water tankers used this port, along with our companies flat-top barges for unloading cement offshore and brought in by tugs. There were also the odd crew-change vessel and a multitude of local sailing craft.
Dorinda left on her last voyage to Kuwait, with an assorted low value general cargo, such as cement. I'd often been in their messroom with her captain, having a beer and shooting the breeze, as he'd often been up in my wheelhouse, working our way down a bottle of whisky. That was the last time that I saw her.
On her way back from Kuwait to Mina Hamria, one of the last remaining bolts on her sea-chest broke and the lid partly lifted. All the other bolts had sheered off long before, and had not been replaced. Either that, or the lazy engineering crew hadn't bothered to us all the bolts after cleaning out the debris. The chief engineer was off-watch, and the second was sound asleep in their messroom to escape from the heat. The engine room started to flood, and they were only made aware that something was wrong when the generated stopped because of the rising sea water. With four feet of oily water on top of the engine room plates, it wasn't long before the main engine stopped as well.
With no chance to close the inlet valve, let alone repair the sea-chest, they were in a pitiable state. They sent up distress flares and radioed for assistance. The Dorinda was towed into Dubai Creek, where she remained alongside until I left Dubai at the end of my contract in 1977. Both generators were stripped down, along with parts of the main engine, but before they could remove the electrical generators themselves, it was brought to the attention of the marine engineering workshop that was repairing the ship that she was not covered by insurance. Under the terms of her insurance contract, she had to have a British Merchant Navy crew, and as they had been replaced to save money, Dorinda was therefore uninsured. 
I suspect that she ended up with all the other vessels at the end of their life, by being sunk on the seaward side of the Dubai harbour breakwater to help protect it from the northerly Shimal wind, and as a dive site for the future diving tourist business. All the best, Dick Brooks.


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