Quote:
Originally Posted by Gate Keeper
Well Jim, my Grandfather was an American and I have an uncle who still lives in the U.S, so I am entitled to have a laugh at my Yankee side. I rather like your last paragraph, it did put a smile on my face tonight  You must have a treasure trove of experiences, good and bad. Maybe some you could not possibly ever share on the Internet. Your maritime photos all tell their own story. Thank you for posting them up. |
Yes Philip, there were many good times, some bad times, some terrifying times, and the times that have never been, or ever will be, spoken about.
My first trip to sea was almost my last, as we went to a terminal in Iran called Bandar Mashur. The following images from the late 1960's show why. I was horrified to see parts of a ship lying on the beach opposite the berth.
All I knew at the time was that it was the remains of a tanker that blew up in 1965.
I just found the pictures again recently amongst the rest of the clutter, and they are not very good. They do illustrate the point though.
I had a search on the internet to try and find out more of what had happened.
I did find out that she was an Italian tanker called "Luisa", and was built in 1961 by Ansaldo, Genoa. She was very advanced for the time.
On the 5th June 1965 the cargo loading was almost complete, when there was an explosion in the boiler room. The ship caught fire and a veritable inferno ensued, with flames shooting 260 feet into the air.
The Captain managed to manoeuvre the ship off the berth, and prevented the fire from spreading to the shore installation. As the ship moved into the channel, she listed over and the flaming oil poured into the sea. Thirty-two of the forty-one man crew perished. It was amazing that anyone could survive that. In October of the same year, Brodospas of Split, cut the ship into sections and dragged them onto the beach. She was left there, apparently as a warning.
Not a nice sight when you are loading 36,000 tons of crude in a steam tanker!