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[David Fox]

Well done to Jim and Fraser, nothing is impossible to a Marine Engineer. Just like joining a ship when you haven't seen the engine before, give it a few watches to settle down and ' She'll Be Right'.
DCF

ps. Rocky removed, not a good photo, I am sure somebody could do better.
DCF

[Jimbo]

Nice one Jim. Good to see all that underpinning knowledge gained at South Shields has been put to good use. Way above my head by the way ..........Jim C

[Fraser Darrah]

I presume it was photographed through a rose tinted filter??

[David Payze]

One of the best photographed from the worst of the ENNA boats. PCO Lottie(Micheal Harman?) told me once that the best view you will ever get of a ship is through the back window of a taxi. Yet to prove him wrong.

[Mike Williamson]

Greetings fellow ex-Vestey employees. I've been lurking around this site for a while, but thought it was time to show my colours and get involved. I have posted a couple of blogs on the merchant-navy.net site and I hope you get a chance to look at them some time. I was drawn to this site by searching for information about Booth Line and Lamport + Holt and have enjoyed several postings particularly when I read fondly about some of my former ship mates. If you will indulge me, I will add a little yarn of my own. I look forward to sharing and learning through this Logbook. I've called this yarn - The Perfect Cuba Libre.

On my first trip through the Caribbean, I remember St Kitts, St Lucia, St Vincent, Dominica and Grenada among others. Sometimes we stopped for no more than two or three hours, other times it was a couple of days but the most memorable stopover by far was Bridgetown, Barbados. One reason I recall it so very well is because it was November 30th 1966 – the day Barbados ceased being a British colony and became a self-governing state. It is now the date which is celebrated in Barbados as Independence Day of course. The country had a new flag, a new Prime Minister and something to sing and dance about and I’m sure we spent the best part of a week joining in with them.
Pretty soon we were all singing God Bless Bim and wearing shirts in the colours of the flag. Frank Stinchcombe, known to us all as "The Saint" was in his element – and it was here that I was to see him at his best when it came to creating the perfect Cuba Libre.
After a day down below, working on whatever task needed doing while we were in port, big Geoff the 3/E and I would meet in the Saint’s cabin at about 1600 hrs. “Come in, m’dears,” he would say in his rich west country accent. “Time for a drink.”
He would be sitting shirtless at his office desk in the Second Engineer’s cabin in his short slightly grubby khaki shorts, wearing a train driver’s style peaked cap and peering through his National Health spectacles. Geoff would be in an equally grubby white t-shirt and shorts, with me a shorter and smaller version of the same. Having left our engine room shoes at the top of the hatchway, we would enter in our socks and sit on his day-bed being careful not to make too much mess as we did so.
He had a fine silver ice bucket on his desk from which he would delicately select one of two cubes of ice using the finest tongs and which he would carefully let drop into crystal “Old Fashioned” glasses, kept for the occasion. Next he would open his desk drawer and out would come the very finest Mt Gay Eclipse Rum which would be opened and generously splashed over the ice. He followed this by taking a lime from a fruit bowl on his desk and using a sharp paring knife would cut it into three segments which would be dropped into each glass. This was followed by a liberal measure of Coca Cola poured from a freshly opened can.
Finally with a flourish he would pull a ten inch screwdriver from his pocket, wipe it down with a piece of grubby cotton waste which had been sticking out of his back pocket and gently stir the contents of each glass as though he were at the Rivoli Bar in the Ritz.
Nothing before, or since, has ever tasted so good. Cheers to you Frank!

[Mike Williamson]

I have always said that Devis was the happiest ship I ever sailed on, and it’s probably true; but the MV Viajero was not far behind. Certainly of all the places I have been on earth, the Amazon experience is right up there with the best of them. Viajero was built in Hamburg in 1957. She was powered by an eight cylinder four stroke 1500 horse power MAN diesel engine which after the brutish B&W engine on Devis was an absolute pleasure to behold.
I arrived in at Pier One in Brooklyn on a cold day in November 1966 as the most junior of the four engineers on board. Geoff Laws, the new third engineer from Keighley in Yorkshire had arrived a day or two earlier on the Queen Mary and it wasn’t long before I joined Geoff and the second engineer, Frank Stinchcombe from Bristol in the regular haunt for Viajero engineers when in Brooklyn, a local bar and grill about 50 yards from the dock gates. Frank was one of the most remarkable, of the many remarkable characters I was at sea with. Known to all as The Saint, he was about 45 years old, as skinny as a rake with a face only a mother would love and could mix a Cuba Libre like no one I have met before or since.
All deck and engine room officers that joined Booth Line for the Amazon service were required to sign on for a period of 12 months (or four round trips from New to Iquitos) and Frank had already done two trips and had been on board for six months. It was always in New York that most of the major repairs and maintenance work was carried out since it usual took one to two weeks to provision and load the vessel prior to the journey south.
The engineers had a good working relationship with the Brooklyn dockside maintenance crew. I can’t remember the names of the local guys, but it was my first time in the US and where better to begin an education in US culture than Brooklyn, New York. I also can’t remember the name of the bar, it was probably just called Charlie’s or something. It was here that I became familiar with such epicurean delights as the ale and chicken dinner (a pot of Schlitz beer with a pickled egg chaser).
A great place to be in 1966 for a banana bender from the back blocks of Far North Queensland!

[Jim Blake]

Hey Jim Caldwell, you don't know how true your remarks are: I did learn a lot in South Shields, and in truth, all this computer stuff is nothing more than clever plumbing: I imagine you have bunkered a few ships in your time, so you have all the skills necessary to build computer networks, its all about pipe diameter and the power of the pump pushing the stuff (data OR oil) through those pipes!

What I did learn which stood me in better stead than any university degree or formal paper qualification was the willingness to see a job through to the end and give value for money, traits which, while very common in the Merchant Navy seem to be missing in today's working world, which is why the country is in the mess it is today. OK, sorry, rant over, I'm back in me box!

Jim Blake

[A.D.Frost]

Welcome Back.Just to correct you Fraser on your "Relpy"to Tom Hughes letter that Kincaids were licencees of H&W/B&W (a technacality)since H&W held the Licence to build B&Ws thoughout the British(Empire) commonwealth something they stole from North British(Barcly Curle). At the end they were building Clark-Kincaid MAN-B&W's(MAN for short).But I don't know why some people make the mistake for confusing the DOXFORD with the B&W just because they were both opposed piston engines,at a quick glance from the tops would tell you, one had two nuts and the other had four nuts per head(thats just the engineers?) and only the Doxford could give you "Whip Lash"

[bgeorge]

Very well done Jim and Fraser,
Many thanks for all your efforts..... I also find bookface...and ..that..that twitterer thing a mystery... applied sorcery if you ask me.... Brian George

[Big Budgie]

Great to have the log book back online. Splendid effort chaps. I hope it's a HUGE success! Jim C and I exchanged a few posts on Facebook after I shared a photo on Nature in Shetland's website http://www.nature-shetland.co.uk/nature ... tbirds.htm which had been posted by a George Petrie. I strongly suspect it's not THAT George Petrie. The photo is of a Seal trying to have a young seagull for his lunch and is worth a look, as is the rest of the site for those interested in such things. However, we both recalled sailing with George on separate occasions. Myself on the Southland in ''72 and Jim on the Cali or Columbia. We wondered if he was still around. Anybody know? I remember thinking he must have been really old because his hair was grey! I was only a teenager at the time though! He'd probably only have been in his 30s!
Once more. All the best with the new logbook. It's great being able to post pics at last too.

Regards Colin Hunter