Yes, why not,
after all those seamen¹s stories, the seafarers probably had little knowledge
of what the landlubbers were doing in their Owners¹ or
agency offices.
I started my
shipping career in 1947 with
VNS in Rotterdam, Westplein 2, one
month after I finished High School. I remember my first day clearly because I
was introduced to the staff of the freight department of the various Lines and
of course with so many on the staff I forgot all those names promptly. I
started as a junior clerk with Holland Brits Indie Lijn,
which after the political changes in British India changed to Holland Bombay
Karachi Lijn and Holland Bengalen
Burma Lijn.
I had never used a
typewriter and to give me some experience I was told to type pages of the
freight tariff, and to “widen my
shipping experience” to glue cargo manifests from the Continental loading ports
in big cardboard folders as well as finding correspondence in the substantial archives of the Claim
manager. Naturally my reaction was, did I spent all those years at school to do these
silly jobs? The freight department handled the quotation of freight rates and I
had to get used to all the names of commodities in that big book. And it goes without
saying that newcomers were always the target of jokes by the staff. They would
ring your phone and ask in a disguised (English) voice: “Sir, could you please
give me the freight rate for
horse figs?” or “ I would like to have your freight rate for hot
water in bottles”. Strangely enough these commodities did not appear in the
freight tariff.
The freight rates were quoted in shillings per ton of 40 cft or 20 cwts, in ship¹s option and of course if you couldn¹t find a particular item there was always the NOE (not otherwise enumerated) rate of 246/- (yes, that means shilling, does anyone remember?) W/M in ship¹s option. (and yes, that means weight or measurement). The freight department also handled Conference matters, weekly and annual reports for which the young ones acted as proof readers.
Communication with
the ship was by means of telegrams using the VNS private code whereby you could
you use 5 letter combinations (e.g. tfxun) to express
a whole sentence. Similarly the Bentley code was used to keep in touch with
overseas agencies. In the evening we coded the messages to be sent and in the
morning we decoded the telegrams received. Fax, email and SMS would have been
so much easier, but then again, sparks wouldn¹t have had a job, would he?
The “lower class”
were the workers in the Cargadoors department who
were
responsible for issuing Bills of Lading. They also
worked weekends and public holidays and overtime payment in those days was non
existent. But ham rolls were provided free of charge by the Company.
I also remember
that the clauses on the B/L were crafted to the extent that they relieved the
shipowner of any liability of damage and loss of cargo. The “cargadoors” also had to type cargo manifests on big
machines, making 10 carbon copies at a time, so that the first few copies, full
of holes, looked like shooting targets at a rifle range.
Once a week a
barrel organ appeared in the side street to brighten up the place and it stayed
for quite some time as the staff kept throwing money out of the window to the
organ grinder, much to the annoyance of management.
One of the more
interesting jobs was to allocate the total ship¹s cargo space to the agents of
various loading ports based on their export bookings.
The first port,
usually Hamburg, frequently exceeded their allotment which then necessitated
the reduction of spaces in subsequent ports as the ships were always fully
booked. Consequently, Genoa, being the last port, often had to substantially reduce their bookings,
much to the annoyance of the agents in that port.
Cargo
inspectors/super cargo in VNS employment (ex ships¹ officers) were in
charge of loading/discharging in the Rijnhaven and they were always ready to
show (off) that they knew what cargo stowage was
all about. We received the
stowage plans from the homeward ships but as
newcomers we had no idea of
lower holds, lower/upper tween
decks and these plans went straight to
the cargo Inspectors. I did like the
pretty colours they used to indicate the destinations in the plans. And of
course we did get requests from receivers to change the destination of their
cargo which we directed to the super cargo as we had no idea of reading a
stowage plan.
It certainly makes
reading bayplans on a container ship a lot easier.
And talking about containers,
I remember my first experience in the early sixties of using a 20¹ CTIU container on a
Holland Australia line vessel for the shipment of Time/Life books. We were
trying to figure out how to use all available space in that box, most probably
ignoring the max allowable weight, apart from not even considering if the
ship¹s gear could lift it as in those days there were no shore side container
cranes to lift 20 tons.
Another experience
was the shipment of carbon tetra chloride as bulk chemical liquid for which the
deeptanks had to be sand blasted in Hamburg. It must
have been a hell of a job for those workers, considering the noise and possibly
little protection. The German Authorities had to be talked into cooperating
with the shipowner to make these shipments possible and management picked me to
fly to Hamburg to fix it. On a Saturday of course!!
Some years later
we experimented with so-called transportable deck tanks which were manufactured
in Valthermond (Groningen) by Plasticlining.
These tanks were coated with a special lining to enable the carriage of most
bulk chemicals and that venture was quite successful.
My shipping career
was interrupted in 1949 when I was conscripted into the Dutch Air Force, and
yes I did have a stint as a trainee pilot on the DH 82 Tiger Moth, flew solo, did the link
training (they now call it flight simulator) but with one and a half guilder
per hour danger money it was, putting it mildly, insufficient to support the
family as my father passed away in 1947. Demob followed in 1951 when I rejoined
VNS, the Holland Australie Lijn
where I eventually became Manager of the freight department in 1963 when my
boss retired.
The 12 years stint
dealing with Australia and getting to know quite a bit of the country made me
long for greener pastures and eventually in 1965 the family moved from Holland
to Australia.
I finished up in
shipping again, my first job being a cost clerk with Adelaide Ship
Construction. The job also involved working out staff¹s wages and going to the
bank to pick up the cash (in those days without any protection of course). The
break came a year later when I moved to Melbourne to continue my shipping
career with John Sanderson who were also acting as
Agents for Holland Australie Lijn
when I got to know much more about HAL ships doing the ship¹s husbandry and all
sorts of other duties. Management also
made me “do” a few Straat ships and the Van Neck.
Conventional
loading improved with the introduction of pre-palletised and pre-slung cargo in
open hatches and the odd container on deck when the W-kerk
class (unit loaders) ships were introduced in the late 60s with Captain Rick Sombroek as the Australian promoter of this new concept.
They were very efficient ships and improved the turn around time in port considerably.
With the 120 tons heavy derrick Patrick stevedoring were able to load 240 bales
of preslung wool from a dolley
on the wharf in one go into the hatch square. It made big news in the shipping
papers but the story that wasn¹t told was that it took quite a few days to assemble that lot with
wire slings.
The hardest part
of that job was to account for all the different sizes of wire slings after
discharge as they were stacked on the wharf like spaghetti. And of course the
sturdy 8 x 4ft pallets had to be accounted for.
The agency moved
away from Sandersons to become Interocean Australia Servies as part of Royal Interocean Lines in their own
office in 500, Bourke Street.
Eventually the W-kerk ships were phased out when container ships were
introduced, first the ACTA and OCL Bay ships, followed by the Continental Lines
and for which a new shipping agency, Seabridge, was set up and staffed by personnel from
agencies which previously handled the conventional
ships of the Continental Lines.
I subsequently
joined Seabridge as the Depot Superintendent for LCL
(Less than Container Loads) which contracted Freightbases
to pack and unpack containers at their depot.
After a few years
I longed for the contact with the ships when I was moved to Seatainers
terminal as Terminal Superintendent for Seabridge
handling Continental container ships such the French “Kangarou”
which had MM (Messageries Maritmes)
all over the hull and thus was quickly referred to as Mickey Mouse, The Lloydiana for Lloyd Triestino,
the Melbourne and Sydney Express for Hapag Lloyd and
VNS¹ Abel Tasman with a few charters thrown in from time to time to cope with
shipping demand. One of them I recall was the Mikhail Prishvin,
a Russian. I remember the early morning arrival and when I came to see the old
man, he offered me breakfast that consisted of bread slices covered with rancid
butter and some cheap Russian plonk. Brrrrrrrr!!!!!
Another break came
when a Belgian shipping company (ABC Container Line -
Antwerp Bulk
Carriers) started looking for Operational staff in preparation of an outsider
“around the world”
service from Europe via Australia and the USA to break up the
Conference monopoly. Their ships commenced the service with bulk carriers to
cater for a
large mineral sand contract from Dupont de Nemours ex
Geraldton and Bunbury to New Orleans. Cell guides in the holds
were non existent and two of those converted bulk
carriers which commenced
the service required container stowage by
forklift 3 high in the fore and aft end as well as the
wings of the holds. Needless to say that the operation was extremely slow and
smelly (engine fumes).
My job as Owner¹s
representative and Operations manager (no lack of titles in shipping) involved ship
planning and operations for container discharge/loading in Fremantle and
Melbourne and the occasional duty in Sydney when my counterpart went on
holidays. Also the odd bulk loading outside the mineral sand contract such as
Alumina ex Gove
(N.T) and zinc/copper ingots from Port Pirie. The company never skimped on
travelling
expenses for their staff because they made it clear
that they felt much happier to have its own staff in attendance. This of course
also meant that, if things went wrong they were able to kick somebody¹s behind.
Luckily that never happened.
It all came to an
end when at age 66, I decided to retire because my philosophy
was, working an extra day for the boss meant less time for retirement.
It was a very
rewarding experience getting to know the crew and officers of
Belgian
nationality who were very dedicated and professional
in their work.
I never considered
Belgium to be a seafaring nation but this job completely
changed my view.
Unfortunately the
company went belly-up 18 months after my retirement. Not
because of the pay-out for my retirement, but
eventually there was no money
left to pay outstanding bills for stevedores,
pilots, tugs, railways etc., thus enough reason to arrest ships in various
ports in the world.
Well, summing it
all up, you seafarers should realise that not all office staff in shipping
companies work Mon to Fri from 9 to 5. Of course 2 out of 7, ships come into
port or work on a weekend.
End of story.
Daan Eisma
Melbourne
6 June 2006.