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Meeting Report October 2003 |
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Mike Jackson from Dover gave us a fascinating presentation at the meeting held on the 6th October. Mike was a sea going radio officer between 1961 and 1998 and although he claims not to have taken ship photos seriously until after 1980 certainly entertained us with a large selection of slides taken whilst serving on tankers during the period 1961 to 1978. |
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The evening started with Shell aboard the tanker �Haustellum� a traditional post war centre island tanker. There then followed a virtual world tour on the 18 different tankers owned by 6 different companies with which Mike served.These journeys took in the Panama Canal, the Cape Verde Islands, the Suez Canal, Naples, Grangemouth, Curacao, Santos, Indonesia, India, Australia, and more than one trip to Vietnam whilst the war was still raging. The first of these was most spectacular when a limpet mine was attached to the hull of Shell�s �Amastra� whilst discharging her cargo in Nha Trang Harbour. This blew a hole in the side of the ship by the engine room, causing the ship to rest on the bottom by the stern. After the fitting of patches by USS Current and lightening by Shell�s �Kara� she was refloated and subsequently sent for repair.
The Americans were using ships from their reserve fleet, and there were some good photos including Victory�s and T2 tankers being used as floating power stations.
Mike then moved on to super tankers and joined the �Marticia� whilst building.Tankers of this size used the Cape passage and were often supplied by helicopter as they passed Cape Town. They also required lightening before they could enter a European port. Mike soon tired of the lifestyle aboard such a large vessel on a repetitive run and moved to smaller oil tankers, and then to chemical and specialty tankers.
Mike also showed some slides of Common Brothers �Langley� at Kaohsung being broken up. The ships here were driven up onto the beach stern first.
Mike finished his days on tankers on the �Athelmonarch� with a passage from the U.S. Virgin Islands to the New York area. |
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Everyone present thoroughly enjoyed the presentation and we thank Mike for making the journey from Dover. We were pleased to hear that he has other slide shows, so we hope that he will come and see us again in the not too distant future. |
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Photographs
Top: Shell Tanker AMASTRA on the sea bed in Nha Trang Harbour.
Middle: AMASTRA awash astern being lightened by the Shell tanker KARA
Bottom: USS CURRENT "plugging the hole" whilst lightening by KARA continues.
Copyright � Mike Jackson |
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Supplimentary Information: |
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Name
Haustellum
Amastra
Kara
USS Current ARS-22
Marticia
Langley
Athelmonarch |
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Company
Shell
Shell
Shell
USN
Shell
Common Brothers
Athel Line |
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Built
1954
1958
1955
1943
1970
1950 |
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Tonnage
12,122 grt
12,273 grt
12,146 grt
209,400 dwt
11,182 grt
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