Lloyd Hughes - FOCA

[David Fox]

If any former Booth Line chaps sailed with Lloyd or FOCA as he was known on the Amazon run, he would appreciate if you can contact him. Lloyd has not been too well of late , but his GM is improving and would like to speak with old friends from Booth Line.
Veras, Cuthbert, V boats and I am sure a lot more.

If you wish you can pm me through the logbook and I can pass details on the Lloyd.

[David Fox]

An experience sent to me by Lloyd Hughes, following the RN minesweeper accident.

Morning David
I had read about the RN ship stuck astern.

After Booths ..I got a job with Lamnalco in the Gulf ..varied jobs on supply boats. in Iran...mooring master on McDermott lift and lay barges ...which I really enjoyed...popping from one to the other by Helicopter...Nearly got taken out one day by an Iranian Hercules...we would have had it only for the quick reaction of the pilot....eventually the company run out of funds due bad management and I was made redundant ...eventually got a job with Arklow shipping....lot of ex Lamnalco people working there to..to cut a long story short I did a lot of my own piloting.

On this occasions I had come up to Deptford Creek with stone from Llandulas quite close to were I live. We were high and dry an hour after we berthed and the same leaving...so no chance to ballast before we left. Coming out stern first into the Thames could not stop the engine..eventually chief stopped it but I had to go down the Thames and through the barrage at slow speed with the bow up in the air till chief fixed the problem..really hairy keeping out of the way of the pleasure boats.
Same bloke in the Gulf left me with only one engine to manoeuvre a few times.

Really good company to work for but we did work...we used to have radio calls between company ships and office at regular times during day no RO but I had done a lot of Link calls in Lamport ships...owner used to slip us an envelope with money at Xmas
Regards Lloyd