Chapter 1 - SAILING DAY
I graduated from the Maritime Academy last Saturday, and it was Monday morning, I had spent Sunday visiting with my folks and now, I again carried my duffle down a pier, only this time I was not headed for a tiny tugboat!
They told me the Taylor was down at the end of the pier and I hauled my stuff on my back all the way from the Greyhound Bus Depot to this pier at Oakland Ocean Terminal.
When I got a good look at the Taylor, my God, it was an old Liberty Ship for goodness sakes. That meant it was an old "up and downer"! It would have a triple expansion steam engine, not even a turbine in the engine room.
When I reported on board and handed my crisp new Third Assistant Engineer's License to the Chief Engineer, Mr. Connolly, he welcomed me aboard and asked me about any sea experience I had.
When I told him I had been an oiler on the Ocean Tug, Percival Cowliss, he was a lot more impressed than with the time I spent on the School Ship. He showed me my stateroom and told me I would have the maneuvering watch leaving port first thing in the morning.
That was not unusual, Thirds, Engine OR Deck, usually had the maneuvering watches and all the 8 to 12 watches.
I put what stuff I had, away and then wandered around my new home, ending up down in the engine room. Sure enough, it was a big Westinghouse triple expansion steam engine, and from the gauges, I could see that it ran on 250 pound steam pressure generated from four, almost antique, B & W Scotch Marine boilers in a separate fire room.
Everything in the engine room was reciprocating; even the generators ran off four cylinder compound steam engines.
One of the boilers was on-line and I watched the fireman, he had to be the biggest man I have ever seen. He was blue-black and had to be close to six and a half feet tall, with shoulders like a bull moose.
When he turned to me, I must have stood there with my mouth open, he had the whitest teeth I have ever seen, surrounded by a shiny black beard that went clear to his beltline! It looked like it had been oiled and curried, like a show horse at the county fair!
He shook my hand and in a voice that was equally startling, he introduced himself as Jeremy Norby. He had a piping British accent, I later found out it was Jamaican and well educated. What he was doing firing boilers on a scruffy old freighter was beyond me.
He was going to be my Fireman, so I asked him to show me around his boilers. He was an easy man to talk to and when he found out I had been an Oiler myself, he became even more friendly. I must have spent two hours down there with him, so I had to hurry and go topside if I wanted any lunch.
I washed my hands and went direct to the Licensed Mess, where the steward showed me my seat. It seems like every time I start something new, I have to start at the bottom of the line down with the whale poop.
Some ships have a Fourth Engineer or even a Junior Third, but the Taylor wasn't one of them, I was gonna be low man on the totem pole.
All the licensed officers seemed pleasant, the Second Mate, Billy Parsons had sailed on tugboats, so we had something in common. He had sailed ocean tugs on the Atlantic in his early days.
The Master walked in with a sour look on his face and all talk stopped. After he left, they told me that he was always like that and everyone tried to stay as far out of his way as possible.
After lunch, I continued my exploration; I examined all the cargo winches, they were steam driven and that, also, was my responsibility. The durned things looked like museum pieces! There was one swing boom that had a DC motor, and must have come off Noah's Ark!
I spent all the rest of the day sticking my nose into everyplace I could find on the ship, even the steering engine room. The whole ship looked like it had come out of one of my old textbooks, about the history of steam ships!
After all, it was 1960 and ships like this one had been in use since the early 1930's! The Taylor looked like it had been kept up pretty well, but much of the machinery had been manufactured by companies that no longer existed.
After I had thoroughly explored the ship, I went back to my stateroom and sorted out my clothes, putting everything away. My stateroom was pretty small, but it had all I needed, a washbasin and mirror, a small fold up desk and chair, and a couch at one end that hid some storage under the seat.
It was early yet, but I didn't feel like going ashore, so I pulled out the book I had started before I left home and read until suppertime. I found the couch to be pretty lumpy and the springs sagged.
The lighting was not all that good in my stateroom, I could see that someone had neglected to adjust the field voltage on the generator, the light bulbs were glowing more like candles. The ship was all direct current (DC) and the little florescent light over my desk buzzed like a hive of angry bees!
I had my supper and then relieved the First Engineer so he could have his supper, I would have to be back in the engine room by 2000 (8 pm) to relieve him again for my 8 to 12 watch, but I got paid overtime for the half hour it took the First Engineer, Mr. Carter, to eat his supper.
He was an Academy Graduate, like myself, but he had graduated long before I ever got there.
There wasn't much going on during my evening watch, the ship had taken on fuel before I reported aboard and the water tanks were full, so we were just waiting for morning light to sail.
The Chief came down and talked to me for a bit, he had been on the ship for a number of years and was telling me tales of quirky things that had happened. Like the reversing engine; that was a small, single cylinder steam engine that drew the valve rockers to center on the reverse or forward camrod, making the engine run in the opposite direction.
He said that the reversing engine would run a couple of revolutions and then stall, so the engineer had to have a big ball peen hammer ready to whack the steam chest in order to keep it running. He also told me that the distiller wasn't worth much, it could barely keep up with keeping the boiler feed water tank full and they didn't even bother trying to make drinking water for the crew.
The Second Engineer relieved me at exactly 10 minutes before midnight, I had already been warned that he was a strange duck and that he would stand at the top of the ladder and wait until exactly 10 minutes before the hour before he would come down to relieve. He spoke precisely with some kind of accent, I really had to listen close to understand what he was saying.
Sheesh, he probably dots his i's and crosses his t's with a ruler. I had looked over his logs from previous days, I was pretty sure he noted every burp, bump and jerk of every piece of machinery in the engine room while he was on watch.
He does!
I got a quick shower and hit my bunk, 8 am was gonna come around mighty fast. It seemed like I had hardly closed my eyes when Ronaldo Margapayen, the First's Oiler was waking me up for my watch.
I had barely met my own Oiler, Johnny Martinez, but the Chief had assured me he was the best oiler on the ship. I was to learn that I could rely on Johnny to act on his own in an emergency!
I gobbled my breakfast down and chugged a cup of coffee before relieving the First. We were scheduled to sail at 10 am and the First said he would come down and assist me on my first getting underway.
I met with my Oiler, he was a friendly sort and he went about his work without having me tell him what to do. After he had filled all the oil cups on the engine, I started bleeding steam into the cylinders to warm the huge machine up.
I stuck my head in the fire room to warn Jeremy that I was going to start taking steam, he had all four boilers on the line at light fire and he gave me the high sign that he was ready.
I closed the hatch into the fire room, so that air pressure would build up to feed the fires. Johnny had already started the second fan and I had to push hard on the fire room door to get it shut.
The forced draft fans that supplied the boilers with combustion air pressurized the entire fire room and air entered the fire boxes through registers at the firing front. Rapid changes of the firing rate would make your ears pop and you had to keep yawning to equalize the pressure in your ears.
One entered the engineering spaces through an air lock at the top of the fiddly and another air lock to go from the fire room to the engine room. I was warned that the interlock at the top of the fiddly was broken, so you had to be careful to shut the outer door before opening the inner door, otherwise, the fire room would depressurize and fire would blow backwards out of the boiler fire boxes into the fire room.
To make matters worse, the entrance to the freezer was accessed from the top of the fiddly, so the cooks had to come into the fire room to get frozen food to feed the crew. The traffic across the top of the fiddly increased before every meal.
I had the engine warmed up well before sailing time and I rocked the throttle back and forth to keep a little steam flowing through the cylinders. The auxiliary air pump was groaning, trying to maintain a vacuum on the condenser. As soon as the engine was running steady, I would be able to switch over to the crosshead pump and shut the darned thing down.
Just before we were to sail, the First came down to watch me. He told me to just do what I was supposed to do; he was there just to catch any mistakes before they became a problem.
Shortly after 1000, the bridge rang down "STANDBY" on the Engine Order Telegraph. I answered the bell, and then told Johnny to open the drains on the engine cylinders and I rocked the engine a couple of times.
There was a telegraph repeater in the fire room and I hoped Jeremy was paying attention.
I needn't have worried, Johnny had stuck his head in the fire room to make sure Jeremy was ready.
The bridge ordered "ASTERN SLOW" and I reversed the engine and admitted steam to the steam chest. I had to pound the damned reversing engine a couple of times before it would draw the rocker to the reverse position.
The crank shaft began to slowly turn in the reverse direction and I could feel the ship pull away from the pier. The next bell was "STOP" and then "AHEAD SLOW". Again, I had to fight with the reversing engine to pull the rocker to the ahead position, before I could admit steam to the steam chest.
The throttle valve was a huge lever that went through the deck grates to the lower level, where the actual throttle valve was. I wasn't very tall, and it was all I could do to pull the throttle lever.
I watched the shaft tachometer and brought the revolutions up to 15, that is what the chart called for at AHEAD SLOW. We stayed at AHEAD SLOW for some time. I guessed we were crossing the bay, headed for the Golden Gate.
After a while, we received an "AHEAD ONE THIRD" bell and I told Johnny to close the cylinder drains while I increased the engine to 25 rpm.
The ship began to sway and roll a bit, from my time on the tugs, I knew we were headed out the "GATE" towards Banana Reef. By the time we really started to roll and pound, the Bridge rang down "AHEAD FULL". I told Johnny to warn Jeffery, I sure didn't want to prime (surge) the boilers!
I raised the engine speed to 60 rpm in slow increments.
The First seemed pleased with my performance and he waved as he left out through the fire room. He probably was headed back to his bunk, after all, he had only about 2 hours sleep.
Once we got the engine stabilized and the governor latched in, I remembered the dim lights and went over to check the generator. Sure enough, there was only 90 volts on the bus, so I raised the field voltage to get the bus back to 120 volts. I sure wasn't going to say anything as it had been the First's watch that the voltage had fallen off.
I locked the throttle down and made sure I set the governor weight before I made my rounds. The governor on the engine was a crude, primitive device, a toss-weight and ratchet. I could be in the fire room and feel the engine change as the ratchet moved up or down. I then checked on Jeremy, he still had a grin on his face, I wondered if he ever scowled.
Everything checked out fine and I bled a little steam into the ship's heating system, even though it was summer, the Pacific Ocean is cold and we were headed for Seattle, so it wasn't going to warm up anytime soon.
The voyage northward uneventful, I soon settled down into the routine and became attuned to the sounds and feel of the engine room around me.
We made good time and I was on watch again three days later, when we made the turn into the San Juan de Fuca Straits. Just before I was relieved at midnight, the bridge ordered an "AHEAD HALF" bell. I figured they were slowing down so we did not arrive in port before daylight.
I was on watch the next morning as we docked, the First said we would just stay on our at sea watch schedule, as we were only going to be there for 16 hours.
The second relieved me right on time, that guy must live by a stop watch.
I had some lunch and took time for a quick shower. We were working cargo, so I had to stay aboard as I was the Deck Engineer. There wasn't much going on, the harbor was socked in with a cold clammy fog and I was glad I had opened up the steam to the ship's heating system a bit more before I was relieved.
That ancient swing boom gave me some trouble. It kept blowing fuses until I saw one of the pier stevedores yanking the rheostat from full "up" to full "down" as fast as he could. I told the First Mate about it, I don't know what he said, but no more fuses were blown.
With all the deck machinery going, we had to keep two boilers on the line, on our evening watch, I stuck my head into the fire room in time to hear Jeremy let out a string of curses that would have blistered paint! Someone had started up something and near sucked his "swing" boiler dry.
I was a little envious, he shouted out a string of curses that I could only envy and I don't think he repeated a single one in 10 minutes!
It was an impressive show! I stood there with my mouth open until he laughed at me and I went about my business, still chuckling.
In the time since I first began, I have observed that the stevedores had no concern for the ship and, in fact, they seemed to deliberately do things to damage the ship or make things difficult for the crew.
We sailed at first light the next morning, headed for Whittier, Alaska.
After being out on the deck, just before I took the watch, the first thing I did was to jack open the steam valve to the heating system even more.
We dropped off the pilot and headed north, it would be several days before we arrived at Whittier. There was nothing to see there, the port is a long ways from Anchorage and not worth the trip to go ashore. Besides, I had been there before and was not impressed back then and I couldn't believe it had gotten any better.
In Whittier, we picked up some government cargo to Hawaii; I was looking forward to that, maybe I could get some good Chinese food again at Wo Fat's? I had enjoyed by trips to Honolulu when I was on the tugs.
I was 23 by now, so I could even indulge in one of those Mai Tai things, legally this time.
We finally left the cold waters of Alaska and headed south, I was going to have to invest in some more heavy clothes if we were going to spend a lot of time in Alaskan waters.
It was cold, even down in the engine room. I had to go stand in front of the boilers to stop shivering.
It was 11 days voyage to Honolulu, a Liberty Ship only goes about 12 knots at best and it was a whole lotta miles from Whittier to Honolulu.
We were scheduled to be there for 4 days, so I made plans accordingly. Jeremy was not planning on going ashore, but Johnny Martinez told me about a place called Tony Gora's.
It was not too far from Wo Fat's and I spent some time at the bar after having my fill of Chinese food. It had been several years since I had been there, not since I left the Amelia to go to the Academy, but Wo Fat's was every bit as good as I remembered it.
We spent the next couple of months going back and forth from Oakland to Honolulu; we had a contract to haul government cargo. We carried a lot of deck cargo; it looked to me to be mostly Marine Corps Jeeps. I could see rows of Jeeps parked next to the pier, there must have been thousands of them!
On one of our trips, we went all the way to Pusan, not a trip I want to make a second time. We were warned and most of us tack welded the doors to our staterooms shut, but the Chief didn't bother.
The stevedores stole just about everything the man had, even his toothbrush! I was too small to lend him any of my clothes, he was a mess. He didn't even have his shoes, they took those too! How they got in and out with all his stuff was a mystery, nobody saw a thing.
To say that Chief Engineer Matt Connolly was an unhappy man was a huge understatement, he was maddern' all hell!
One of the Marine sentries on the pier told me that the spare tires and the gas cans would be stolen off the jeeps before the railcars ever got past the gate.
On the way back to Oakland, the First changed my oiler, I got Ronaldo Margapayen, hoo boy, I should have been suspicious.
Ronaldo was a Filipino and claimed he couldn't understand English, except when he thought his paycheck was wrong!
We were steaming steady about three days out from Oakland. I had noticed the lube oil pressure on the main bearings was a little low and I told him to clean the strainer on the pump suction.
Two hours later he still hadn't done it and I got after him again. He gave me a dumb stare as if he didn't understand a word I said.
Just before we were relieved, the low oil pressure alarm went off and the oil pressure gauge was jumping and bucking. I hit the emergency trip on the main engine and we went DIW. (Dead in the Water)
The Chief came flying down the fiddly and into the engine room, fire snorting out his nostrils. I told him what happened and also told him that I would not be responsible for having Ronaldo Margapayen on my watch, he wasn't trustworthy. I told him if I had anything to do with it, his Seaman's Papers would be lifted on the spot.
He tried to tell the Chief that I had never told him to clean the strainer, but the First told him that he had done the same thing to him. His English improved markedly when he was trying to justify himself to the Chief!
The oiler was relieved of his duties and told he would be put ashore as soon as they returned to Oakland.
Danny Spivie, who had been sailing as a wiper, but had his Oiler's Papers, was upgraded and made my oiler.
What a difference!
We docked in Honolulu and the next morning, Ronaldo Margapayen was gone. All his belongings, everything was gone.
It was no loss to me, but the Chief and the Captain had to make a report to the Coast Guard and fill out a ream of papers.
For all of me, I hoped he fell into some deep dark hole and stayed there!
The voyage back to Oakland was without any problems whatsoever. I told the Chief that I wanted to keep Danny and he had no problem with that, he had done his investigation and found out what a terrible oiler Ronaldo Margapayen had been and that we were well rid of him, paperwork or not.
We had to pull the bearings on the engine, to make sure they had not been damaged because of low oil pressure.
The back main had to be scraped and reseated, as it showed slight signs of wiping. It meant that we were delayed a day for our sailing and the Captain was breathing fire and stomping around on the bridge all the while we were repairing the engine. The Chief just laughed, there was no love lost between the two of them!
Chapter 2 - DOWN UNDER
We loaded all holds with cargo for Perth, Australia. I was on deck as Deck Enginer when it was being loaded. It looked like heavy machinery, the kind that was used in mining.
A trip to Australia sounded good to me, winter was coming on and I sure didn't relish another trip to Whittier! I did load up on cold weather stuff and bought a bunch of books that were on sale at the San Francisco Public Library. I also bought a Hallicrafter's Shortwave Radio kit. It was one of those assemble it yourself kits and it looked like an interesting project for a long voyage.
We topped off the water tanks and took on fuel oil. The Taylor burned Bunker "C" heavy fuel oil, the stuff was nearly so thick at room temperature, you could cut it with a saw! It had to be heated to about 180 degrees before you could spray it in the boiler fireboxes and burn it.
Just before we sailed, the Captain left the ship and a new one was assigned, he seemed like a nice enough fellow, but traditionally, there was little love lost between the Deck Crew and the Snipes.
At last, we finished loading and all the deck cargo was tied down. I had a few ideas about our crappy distiller and, after we sailed, I spent a couple of days tearing it apart in hopes of finding out why it didn't work. I found the demister screens completely plugged and the primary side baffles had corrosion holes big enough for me to crawl through!
It was a standard Grissom-Russell Soloshell evaporator and, once we got far enough off-shore to be away from the pollution, I fired it up. Almost immediately, fresh water started to come out of the test nozzle. I tested it a couple of times and it tested good, so I switched the drains to the water tanks.
The Chief came down a couple of times and just stared at the damned thing, scratching his head. I think we was wondering how long it would stay working. When I left the ship, it was still producing good water and it kept the tanks topped off.
Sure, I was a dirty mess afterwards, but it beat the hell out of going on water rationing!
As long as we did not try to push the unit hard, it would run by itself, needing only to be tested about once a watch. That was a skill any Oiler or Fireman had to know for their ticket.
We crossed the Equator and I already had my Certificate, but my oiler, poor Danny, had to kiss Neptune's Belly. It was all in good fun, though, and nobody got bent out of shape.
It was a slow, long trip, 26 days from Oakland to Perth. We pulled in to the Marine Terminal, I was topside gawking like a tourist until I had to go on watch.
We shut down three of the boilers and used just one to run the winches and the generator.
That old ship didn't have air conditioning, and darned few fans so we were cooking in our staterooms. We all spent as much time topside as we could.
While we were working cargo, I had to be up there anyway, so when the Bo'sun waved me over, I kind of strolled in his direction. What he had for me was a sight forever imbedded in my mind!
There was a Russian grain ship across the pier from us working cargo. They had a woman First Mate, she had to be near 7 feet tall and 500 pounds! She had huge breasts that she had tied out of her way with ropes and she was giving those Aussie Dockies positive Hell!
Even as far away as we were, we could tell they were scared out of their wits of her, she swung on the Laborer Foreman and knocked him clear down the gangway!
Boats and I decided we were needed somewhere else, fast!
It was slow going, unloading all that machinery, the Terminal did not have the proper equipment to receive the heavy machinery, so they had to jury-rig low boys to receive it.
Also, they did not have lights, so we could offload only during daytime hours.
There were days when only one piece of machinery was offloaded and we all thought we were going to scream before we saw the last of that cargo!
By the time we were unloaded, we were sitting high in the water and had to run empty to Sydney for a return load.
When we got to Sydney, they were having some kind of labor strike and we were stuck for a week before we could get loaded. I heard later that the Captain was stomping around on the bridge, making the mates' lives miserable.
I found everything in Sydney to be very expensive, except for the beer, so after the first day or so, I stayed pretty much close to the ship.
I did find something that I loved, they have a fish there called barramundi and it was wonderful grilled. They had little shops on the piers, what they called cays and pronounced key. The fish shop on the central cay did a lively business for those of us on the Taylor.
It was hot and stuffy on the ship and the little fish shop had outdoor tables and a cool breeze swept across the cay. It was the first time I saw my Fireman, Jeremy go ashore and I thought he was going eat the whole country out of barramundi! The man had the appetite of any two men and there were a couple of time I was pretty sure he had licked his plate!
We took on cargo bound for Valparaiso, Chile and Christchurch, New Zealand. Our first stop would be Port Littleton, the port for Christchurch. It was a small port and we had to wait out in the harbor for our turn at the pier.
It was only part of one hold, so we were there only for a few hours before continuing on to Valparaiso.
The voyage eastward was long and boring, one could become hypnotized by the steady thumping of the main engine. At long last, the coastline came over the horizon and we were soon tied up to the pier in Valparaiso.
We offloaded huge crates of machinery and about twenty huge bulldozers. All of which strained my cargo handling gear to its limits. I could hear the forced draft fans groan, all the way up topside, when the winches took up the load.
After we were empty, the First Mate got all the deckhands down in the holds and swept them all out. I wondered about that, all the First would say was "Guano".
The next day, a long line of rail flatbed cars were delivered to the pier, they were piled high with burlap bags. I was told that it was Chilean Nitrate and, if there were any oils or other carbon sources in the holds, we could have a terrible explosion.
Years later, I learned that was how they blasted in mines, they would pack the drill hole with nitrate and mix some motor oil in with it. Add a detonator and they could blast a whole mountain down
The whole ship reeked of ammonia, some days strong enough to make your eyes water.
When we arrived at Panama City we had to wait to go through the Canal. There were a bunch of ships ahead of us, waiting in line to enter the locks.
At that time, traffic was allowed only in one direction at a time and there were no lights, so the canal shut down after dark. If you got caught at direction change, your ship had to anchor in Gatun Lake until the next change of direction.
Since freighters had very low priority, we had to wait 5 days before we were scheduled to transit the canal.
Panama City was fairly interesting and it was there that I learned NOT to ever drink rum and Coke. A popular drink there was called a "Cuba de Libre", it was mostly rum and a splash of Coco Cola and a twist of lime.
A bunch of us went ashore, I don't remember much else. I don't even remember having the maneuvering watch going through the locks of the canal. The first clear memory I have is waking up in my stateroom and watching the geometric designs on the overhead as it swirled around!
I rushed (staggered?) down to the engine room. We were at anchor in the lake. All my logs were signed properly by me and the bell sheet was filled out and signed. I don't remember a thing about it, but the Chief said not a word, so I must have pulled it off.
It would be a half century before I ever tried rum again!
We finally pulled in to Galveston, Texas and off loaded the nitrate. We left the hatch covers open as we headed to New Orleans for our next cargo; hoping to air out the awful ammonia smell.
It was Mardi Gras time and an old classmate of mine invited me to his home to watch the parade. It was a blast, he was part of an old New Orleans Family and they had a building right on the way the parade went, so we sat on an iron balcony and watched the parade go by.
His Grandmother took us to a restaurant that became a favorite of mine in the years since, "The Court of the Two Sisters". To call it fabulous would be like calling the Crown Jewels pretty. It was a meal worth committing crimes against God and Country for!
We loaded with a mixed cargo, one hold had bagged rice on pallets and the rest was in huge sea crates. It about drove me nuts, we were dropping off cargo at almost every sand spit in the Caribbean, I spent so much time on deck keeping the winches operating that I got sunburned!
It was almost a relief to come back to Mobile to take on cargo, although Mobile had to be the cesspool port of America. It was dirty, trashy and half their cargo handling gear either didn't work or they spilled cargo all over the pier!
It was a relief to finally get loaded and we sailed for Long Beach, California.
TBC