Ships'n'Sailors

[captain kong]

Here are some old photos from the 50s.

No.1 In 1959 on the Good Hope Castle, Me at the top of the Top Mast fixing a new main mast Navigation light.
My mate Ted is on the `table` below me. Ted and I went to school together and sailed for a few years together. I saw him last week and he is dying of leaukemia.

No.2 In 1956 on the Corrales, a Fyffes banana boat, off the coast of West Africa, with a shark we had caught. Wish I was as fit now as I was then.

No.3. In 1957 on the Adelaide Star in the Southern Ocean, bound for Australia, with a Flying fish that had decided to join us by flying onboard.

[brian daley]

Nice pics Brian,keep them coming,
BrianD

[captain kong]

Here are three photos from the Blue Funnel ship Euryades, a Sam Boat, in the Spice Islands in 1960
No.1.
Me with Charlie Kakatoa on my shoulder. He was a cockatoo [ kakatoa ] I got in Java and became a good mate, only problem, Charlie was a plonky.Always drunk on Javanese brandy.Good talker, good drinker.I left him in a bar in Padang Sumatra, after six months, and felt awful.
No. 2.
The deck crowd , this is a Sunday, we always wore our best sarongs on a Sunday and for going ashore in, Blue Funnel uniform in those days. My avatar is my working sarong.We had a stand to hang the parrot cages on, Charlie had no use of cages, he could tear one to pieces in seconds.
No.3.
This place had no name, just a latitude and longitude, a small lagoon in an island where we loaded teak logs from Borneo, that is the deck crowd fooling around as we were slinging the logs loaing them. No dockers there.

Happy Days.

[pablo42]

Nice one Captain.

[captain kong]

No.1.
Heilicopter from Court Line loading stores off Cape Town onto Esso Caledonia, 280,000 ton tanker.
No, 2,
Learning to fly in Cape Town.
No.2.
just landed a badly injured Norwegian Seaman in Cape Town.

[captain kong]

No. 1 .
Tanker Esso Aberdeen, 125,000 tons loading crude oil over the bow from the Brent Spa, loading buoy, 250 miles north of the Shetland Isles. Cargoes exported to the States, Canada and Eurpean ports.

No.2.
Esso Dalriada, 300,000 tons, discharging crude oil from Kharg in Iran at Ain Sukhna in the Gulf of Suez through a floating pipe line to the shore and then across the desert in Egypt, through the Sumed Line, to a port near Alexandria on the Mediterranean, to be loaded again and taken to Europe, This new terminal saved the ship, too big to pass through the Suez Canal, doing a two month voyage around the Cape to Europe

[pablo42]

Nice one Captain.

[captain kong]

No.1.
Me greasing a span wire from the top of one samson post to the other on `Dunedin Star`
No.2.
Watch below. no hammock just a lashing from the four corners of a blanket, on tanker, `Clutha River` in 1962 coming up the Red Sea.
No.3.
Just left the Cunard berth, Pier 92 in New York, on the`MEDIA` first week in January 1956, Temperature 30 below. The Hudson River was frozen. The United States Lines liner, `United States` or `America` is alongside their berth behind.

[pablo42]

Nice one Captain. I bet you'd still go up there wouldn't you.

[kevin]

Nice one Captain. I bet you'd still go up there wouldn't you.

More King Kong than Captain Kong.

[pablo42]

More King Kong than Captain Kong.

Ha, he'll scrag you for that...

[captain kong]

Ha Ha.
No1.
me aloft again painting the mast on on the` Manchester Merchant` in 1961
No.2.
About to ship a big sea in the Atlantic on the `Matina` Fyffes banana boat.

[brian daley]

Some great pics there Brian, brought back a lot of memories,and not all of them good. I can still remember how fragile I felt after a night on the sauce and being stuck up a forestay to do the Stockholm tarring. you know what I mean?
BrianD

[captain kong]

This is the Auxilary Schooner `Wongala` quite well known on the Australian and New Zealand Coasts
My brother John, he of the Aspinalls Cambrinus Craft Brewery in Knowlsley, Liverpool. Brewer of the finest real ales to the Northern Shires. Master Mariner and Master Brewer.
He sailed on `Wongala` for six months carrying explosives from Sydney and western Australian ports to Milford Sound in New Zealand under sail. She had a reputation as a submarine, leaving Sydney Heads and then submerging and surfacing 12 days later in New Zealand
She was built in 1954 in Hong Kong and then was wrecked on Bett Reef near Thursday Island, top of the Reef.on 22 July 1981

photos.
No.1
On Bett Reef at Low tide discharging what remains of her cargo and stores etc.
No,2.
High and dry on the Reef
No.3.
Under sail.
No.4.
outward bound before rigging sails.

[brian daley]

Very interesting pics Brian.........and you say this vessel runs on Cambrinus Ales? hic"
BrianD