| Meeting Report June 2008 |
| We had nearly a �full house� at our June meeting when Andy Skarstein presented an illustrated talk on his time with Clan Line in the mid to late 1970�s. This was a typical voyage from the UK to Cape Town via the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal on the general cargo ship CLAN MACINDOE. She was a vessel of 7,395 g.r.t. built in Glasgow by John Brown�s in 1959. She became GULF HERON when sold in 1979 Because of foggy conditions, the voyage through Suez was delayed, but being anchored off the Port Operations Building at Port Said gave a good opportunity to photo some of the local ferries, dredgers and tugs, and then the ships approaching in the north bound convoy. One of the largest of these was the 1973 built NEDLLOYD DELFT of 58,716 grt. Andy also showed us pictures of the passage through the canal and of the war damage in the town of Ismailia on the Great Bitter Lake. First port of call was Al Aqabah in Jordan where it was explained that due to its nearness to the Israeli border ones navigation had to be good so as not to create an international incident! Further calls were made at Djibouti where units of the French Navy were present, Dar es-Salem, Macala, Beira, Maputo (Laurenco Marques), Durban, East London, and Cape Town. These ports were busy with ships of all types and nationalities but it was surprising how many were U.K. built. Ships prefixed KOTA of the PIL line were also quite prolific. It was also interesting to see a large number of elderly craft within port installations. A large proportion of tugs were still coal fired, and one bucket-dredger originally built in Glasgow and working in East London dated from 1925. Andy�s photos also covered pictures of the dock hinterland at various ports. One of particular interest was of locomotives on the narrow gauge railway at Durban, at least one of which is now running on the Welsh Highland Railway in North Wales. Andy was also present in East London to photograph the last voyage of SA ORANGE and WINDSOR CASTLE from the port. He was also in Cape Town to witness the final departures of both AUSTRALIS and REINA del MAR whilst on his first trip at sea on ROTHESAY CASTLE. The evening was most enjoyable with a lot of audience participation, and we thank Andy for braving the awful weather and the M25 to come and give his excellently researched presentation. |
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