Wilkawa
Comments from the forum - 1
Hi Terry Price, possibly we have met very briefly as I joined the Wilkawa on a hot sticky night in November 1972, it was my 2nd trip and I was signed on as the fiver, the ship had loaded with grain and was at anchor by the bend in the river awaiting the change over, this happened about 2 or 3 oclock in the morning and did not last very long as we had to get underway.
Some of the others I joined with were Captain Willy Cross, George Cuthbutson, Evan Sefton, Clive Greenwood, Jackie Chatton, Walter Hutchings and as has been said it was over 38 years ago & I have forgot the other men.
After the relieved crew departed we went onto stand by and as we did the bottom feel out of the main water jacket cooler for the engine, very quickly we had a lot of water on the tank tops, all of us in brand new boiler suits and boots stood in muddy water to do a repair.
That was the start of an eventful trip not least our fair share of exhaust valve problems,
I was on watch with Jackie Chatton & this went very well until he lost his dentures down the engine room tank tops, the ER crew and us juniors spent quite a time serching for them, one of the donkey men did mange to find them, Jackie swilled them off in some Gamlen and put them in his pocket for further cleaning.
I sailed with Captain Willy several times and you where always in for an eventful time, the first time I saw him go ashore was in the company of 2 guards in Cristobal after we had a bunker spill in the middle of the night, boy did he let us engineers know he was not happy being escorted ashore in his pyjamas, dressing gown & slippers by guards.
Like you I live in an elevated postition which is about 1000 ft up and we look over the ports of Newport and across to the Royal Portbury docks, while Portbury docks gets lots of traffic Newport get very few ships.
The Wilkawa along with the other 2 car carriers tested the metal of a lot of people but I guess we all came through for our greater good. Willie Davies. Posted on forum 22 February 2012.
Sailed on the Wilkawa Feb to May 1972 as Fourth Engineer.Joined in Newark and sailed to Stockton where we loaded powdered coal for Fukuoka.On arrival had problems pumping out ballast tanks,flooding Engineroom.Up the tunnel and a holed discharge pipe was found and repaired with a"cement box".Finished discharging and it was of to Yokohama to clean holds, to load cars and check and permanently repair ballast pipes.
Whilst there I took bunkers and in the the process of doing so the Mate,I think it was Pete Boroughs,ran into the Engineroom yelling to me to stop bunkering because the hold was flooding the hold!!!Oops.Ran past him onto the deck and got the bunker men to shut down.
The coal we had loaded was determined to contain a lot of Sulphur and was wet when loaded and Sulphuric Acid was formed and burned holes in the holds deck through into the fuel tanks below.A cleaning crew from shoreside cleaned up the the hold and repairs made,then,all the holds were thoroughly washed down and we loaded 2000 cars for Jacksonville where every single one had to be re-sprayed because even after the thorough cleaning the coal still lingered, coating the cars and it rained when they were parked up in the compound forming Acid and blistering the paint work.And that wasn't the end of the problems caused by that cargo of coal....... Mike Snook. Posted on forum 5 June 2012.
Disclaimer: The statements on this page are the views of the person who posted them on the forum. The events took place many years ago and in most cases rely on those people's memories, and so we cannot guarantee the accuracy although every effort is made to check it.
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