Although most
of my friends know me as an ex Radio-Holland Marconist, I actually started my
seafaring career as a 17-year old Junior Deck Officer with Shell Tankers
Rotterdam.
This then is
my story about my days on the Shell tanker Vasum.
After
successfully completing the one-year course at the Kweekschool voor de Zeevaart
(Naval College) in Amsterdam, Shell Tankers assigned me as stuurmans leerling
(apprentice mate, i.e. a sort of midshipman or ‘snotty’) on their 2-year old,
30,000 ton Shell tanker Vasum.
All Shell
tankers featured a shell as emblem on their funnel and were named after
different seashells. Vasum is the Latin word for vase, as the Vasum
seashell is (using a liberal dose of imagination) shaped as a vase.
The rank of apprentice deck officer is the lowest officer rank, but in status, skills and seamanship knowledge, it was considered lower than a Matroos (Ordinary Seaman).
I was warned
that my treatment on board by senior Officers would be similar to the treatment
I had endured at the Naval College from senior cadets. But I was ill prepared
for the welcome I received, when I strolled in full dress uniform up a steep
gangplank on board my first ship.
I was spotted
by the Chief Mate, who shouted at me in a voice that could be heard 2 wharves
away: “Take that monkey suit off and get yourself into a pair of overalls and
report immediately to the Bosun”.
But that was
only the beginning, as for the next couple of months, the Chief Mate, my
teacher, went out of his way to pick on me and criticize everything I did. But
when I showed that I was a willing learner, the Chief relaxed somewhat. Much
later, the Chief Mate even admitted that it was nothing personal, but that he
gave every new midshipman a hard time because, “That’s how I was treated when I
was a young officer and it didn’t do me any harm”.
The Vasum
was called a “baby super”, as compared to the mammoth ULCCs (ultra large
crude carriers) of 100,000 tons or more, she was relatively
small. But I found her enormous and I couldn’t get over how long she was.
The
superstructure amidships contained the deck officers’ cabins, including mine,
which were located below the deckhouse and bridge.
All cabins had
flyscreen in front of the door and windows. These screens made the cabins
sparkproof. I was well aware that a
tanker is a floating petrol tank and that sparks and open flames would ignite
the ever-present petrol fumes. Officers and crew were therefore only allowed to
smoke in the protected environment of screened cabins, messrooms and offices.
In the aft
superstructure, directly above the engineroom, were the dining room, the crew
quarters and the engineers’ cabins.
The front or
forecastle (focsle) of the ship was the bosun’s domain and – for at least 2
months – my place of work. It was used to store ropes, cables, lights, paints,
tools and other assorted hardware.
The mid and
aft superstructures were connected by a catwalk, a sort of bridge-like
construction with steel railings and wire enclosed, which ran over above the
many large exposed fuel pipes on deck. For obvious reasons this walkway was
called the chickenrun.
In the middle
of the catwalk was a metal shelter, with sides and a curved roof. This shelter
came in handy during bad weather, when huge waves, which thrashed onto the deck
and over the catwalk, made the trip to the diningroom an uncomfortable and even
dangerous affair. You had to pick the right time to run between the waves from
one superstructure to the shelter, pause for a while inside the shelter and run
again to the next superstructure.
The Vasum sailed
between Rotterdam and Mina-al-Ahmadi, an oil pipeline terminal in the Persian
Gulf.
On board I was
kept busy with splicing cables, painting and doing all the jobs an Ordinary
Seaman does. Gradually the Chief Mate allowed me to perform basic functions on
the bridge, which consisted of making cups of coffee for the Officer on duty,
taking the wheel, phoning the Engine room to exchange statistical information
and standing watch on the bridge wing.
At
noon I was allowed to assist the watch Officer in determining the ship’s
position. There were several means of determining the vessel’s position. A
sextant, a sort of telescope with mirrors, was used during the day to measure
the sun’s angle above the horizon. During the night the angle of stars and
certain planets above the horizon were shot. With this angle, the chronometer’s
exact time in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and the Almanac, the ship’s position
was calculated by at least 3 deck officers. There positions were then compared
and it was often me, who was totally out. But I got better at it and finally
got it.
Another
way of determining the position was by taking the bearing and distance of
nearby geographical landmarks, like capes or lighthouses with the aid of the
ship’s compass and radar.
In
addition, when relatively close to the coast, the echo sounder was used to see
when the ship passed over 100 fathom lines or other depths indications as
marked on the navigation chart.
Another
means was by using the vessel’s Direction Finder (DF). Its loop shaped
revolving receiving antenna would be directed towards 3 or more radio signals
from distant shore stations and their directions would be plotted on the chart.
My
first watch with the Chief Mate was rather disastrous. He asked me to make him
a cup of coffee and without first checking, I was about to switch on an empty
kettle, when the Chief Officer pushed my hand away. It was as if he had been
waiting for this to happen.
“You
are the biggest klootzak (nincompoop) I have come across in years”, he
shouted at me. He was right of course, and I cursed myself in silence for being
so dense.
Another of my
duties was to accompany the Second Officer on his weekly rounds to check and
top up the many fire extinguishers on board. The tetrachloride liquid inside
the copper bottle-shaped fire extinguishers was subject to a certain degree of
evaporation, especially noticeable in the tropics.
Commercially, tetrachloride was not only used for extinguishing fires, but also by drycleaners to remove stains from fabrics, a fact apparently well known by the crew of our ship.
As a result the fire extinguishers near the crew quarters were always half empty. But the clever Second Mate had his own solution to stop the pilfering. On his weekly rounds he added a bit of red ink to the tetrachloride, which, instead of removing stains, would add a dirty red stain to the clothing of any thieving crewmember.
When the
occasion called, I was also the ship’s film projectionist and showed films to
the Officers and crew, either inside in the recreation room or outside on deck.
The filmreels, stored in large metal boxes, were obtained from the Mission to
Seamen in major ports. Once seen, they were exchanged in the next port for new
ones.
Everybody that
was off duty turned up when I showed the film Et Dieu crea la femme (And God created woman), starring
the 18 year old pouting French sex kitten Brigitte Bardot. The film, made in
1956, was directed by her husband Roger Vadim, whom she left a year later for Louis
Trintignant, her lover in the film. The opening part with Curt Jurgens, where
BB showed her bare back and bottom, was so much appreciated by the Officers and
crew, that I had to show it over and over again. At
one stage the projector got so hot that it stopped altogether, but not for
long, as the electrician was on hand to fix it. It was a lively performance
with shouts of “We love you Brigitte” and other remarks and shouts referring to
parts of her beautiful body. No wonder that BB remained one of my favourite
film stars.
Herman
Willemsen