Cape Breton's Magazine

Andy Gibb (down in the engine room): I joined the ship in Bantry Bay, in Ireland, This is my first trip with a supertanker, I was on general cargo before, I enjoy this, but right now it's hell. Everything's going haywire. Boilers and one generator You see, you've got two boilers and they are provided mainly for the discharge of the cargo • there are four steam-driven turbine cargo oilpumps • this ship can dis? charge in 30 hours with those pumps going flat out. The boiler is mainly for those and the tank heating of the cargo. Around all the cargo tanks you've got coils, steam coils with steam passing through. Sea, temperature right now is 57 degrees. That's too low. That'll make the oil too thick to pump. They heat them up. That's what boilers are mainly for. Now without the generators the boilers won't go it re? lies on electric to work. Normally it's fully automatic. Normally. It isn't at the moment. It relies on prayers and things like that. The thing is, at sea you get everything settled down nicely. Once you arrive in port you start getting demands for extra steam, the engine movements, everything else • everything goes haywire. That's common. It's just the way it goes. It's difficult to explain what I do to correct it. Even I'm not sure what I'll do. It's sort of instinct. You run around and shut this and open that and sort of say oh well that's fixed up. Andy Gibbs, second from left Dave West-Watson Dave West-Watson (the Navigator): The engineers aren't precision engineers. They can't be on this sort of thing. They've got to keep her running. A precision engi? neer, you've got to stop in, make repairs. But on this thing time's money. I'm the navigator. If I made a mistake in the general average speed point one of a knot (.1/ knot), amounts to about $10,000 to $25,000 • depends on how it goes over the year. I mean, point one in a knot is nothing really. It's money, everything's money on these. I've been on 5 months with the prospect of another month. I haven't s'nt one hour ashore. Oh, I made a phone call in Bantry. I reckon that you reach a peak at about a month and then you start fading away. You know, it's not bad. I asked to come on this ship and I asked to stay on. This is the sort of thing I wanted because I'm go? ing after my ticket • ray mate's ticket. The life obviously isn't like anything to compare with ashore. And it isn't like any other ship that you'll go on, these su? pertankers. Even on the smaller supertankers in this company • 75,000 tons • you get an opportunity to go ashore. You might not got but you've got the opportunity and that's all you want. The opportunity gives you sort of relief, you know. Ah, I could have gone ashore there. You're free. You're still doing your ivatch • you're doing 8 hours a day, 7 days a week • and this is the first port in five months where there are people, I'll be really interested to see what you write. I don't know whether you remember the article they wrote in the Daily Express, the one about the supertanker going up Where Service Costs No More MacLeod's FINA Baddeck Excellent Accomodations rbe MARklAND MNaWALL'VICTORM COUNTY. N.S. > PhaiMiOllwmMi 4* Mrs. Chester McBvoyt Manager Cards for All Occasions The Card Shop Sydney Shopping Centre lAGOBSON'S 'ILADIES WEAR LTD.! '1' "Tenwrrew's FosWons Featured Tecfay" Cape Breton's Magazine/23