Neil thread through the show was geographical with ships associated with various countries or areas of the world grouped together. These groupings were either standard ships of a country or ships registered within that country.
The period covered the 1970s to the 1990s and ships were seen in the Thames and the port of Tilbury and the ports, rivers and canals of near Europe.
Neil started with East Germany with some fine examples of the Neptune 461 class which had a seemingly large accommodation block compared to ships of today. Poland was represented by a large number of their standard designs starting with the B438 class of 1973. The AL YRMOUK (class B432) built in 1979 is still trading today. There are still many ex Polish ships trading in the Far East. It was speculated that these type of vessel owe their longevity to the fact that there were sturdily built and that to build such a type today would be too expensive.
Russia came next under the spotlight with ships built in Russia and also ships built in Finland and other countries for the Russians.
Those emanating from China, with pictures taken in Sheerness, Cardiff and Dunkirk, followed ships built in Yugoslavian yards.
The British designed SD14 was featured, with, amongst others, pictures of WAVE CREST of 1968, only the second to be built on it�s last visit to Tilbury in the 1990s. Others shown with a British connection were the Rubens ex ORBITA and ex P&O Strath liners.
No show on ships with derricks would be complete without heavy lift ships and a variety of examples with derrick capacities up to 630 tons were shown. The show ended with a picture of the 1984 built sail assisted IRAZU in Tilbury docks.
It has been a long time since we had an evening devoted to just one type of ship and we thank Neil for an entertaining and interesting presentation and hope it is not so long before he visits again.