Staying Afloat
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STAYING AFLOAT A Life in Shipbuilding by Tim Colton Originally published electronically on www.ColtonCompany.com in 16 monthly installments, between June 2008 and September 2009 © Tim Colton 2009 Maritime Business Strategies, LLC 36 South Ocean Boulevard, Delray Beach, FL 33483 www.ColtonCompany.com www.ShipbuildingHistory.com Staying Afloat TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Title Page 1 Why Not Shipbuilding? 1 2 The Clyde: A Different World 9 3 The Clyde: An Education in Every Sense 17 4 The Clyde: Moving Up and On 27 5 Newfoundland: An Even More Different World 37 6 New York City: A Slight Cultural Shift 47 7 New York City: Transportation Sciences 57 8 New York City: Iran, the Middle East and California 67 9 Texas: Drilling Rigs and Bulk Carriers 77 10 Texas: A Change of Course 87 11 Pennsylvania: Penn Ship and the Navy 97 12 Pennsylvania: Developing the Business 107 13 Washington DC: Colton & Company – The Bush Years 117 14 Washington DC: Colton & Company – The Clinton Years 127 15 Mississippi: Halter Marine Group and the FGH Fiasco 141 16 Mississippi and Florida: Slowing Down 157 i Tim Colton ILLUSTRATIONS Title Page Chapter 1: St. Oswald’s, Lower Peover, with pub in background 3 The Belmont rugby XV, with TC second from right, in the middle row 5 Radley College 6 Chapter 2: The Axina coming into the outfitting basin after its launch 12 Port Glasgow, the Clyde and the hills of Argyll, with rain on the way 13 Chapter 3: Glasgow University 17 Mutton pies: ambrosia 18 A 1934 MGA 19 Lithgows East Yard 21 Riveting 22 Launching the Makrana in the Glen Yard 23 Chapter 4: The Amsler integrator 28 A 25-pounder in action 29 Hull 1158, the Westmorland 34 Chapter 5: The Marystown shipyard 41 The Atlantic Carol on the lift, ready for launching 45 Chapter 6: GTS Euroliner 48 Todd’s restricted building ways 48 The ship I was not allowed to look at 54 Con Ed’s power barges from the air 55 ii Staying Afloat Chapter 7: Dubai Drydocks 59 Neorion Shipyard 62 Portland Ship Repair Yard 63 The shipyard in Tampa 65 Chapter 8: Iran, with Abadan and Bandar Khomeini in the southwest 69 Seen in Morocco: tree-climbing goats 72 The Port of Hueneme 75 Chapter 9: Levingston’s shipyard 78 Our first bulker, the Pride of Texas 81 Our Chilean jack-up, the Diamond M Magellanes 81 Chapter 10: One of the FABC ships, then Tilly Lykes, now Maersk Nevada 88 Sun Ship in 1940 92 Sun Ship’s 70,000-ton dry-dock 93 Chapter 11: One of the Waterman ships, after conversion to T-AK 98 The T-AKR Denebola, after conversion 101 One of the Navy’s T-AOs 104 Chapter 12: The Chesapeake 1000, ex-Sun 800 111 Chapter 13: One of Maersk’s prepositioning ships 119 The Exxon Long Beach 121 One of Argent’s LNG carriers, now Shell’s LNG Delta 122 Bollinger’s shipyard on Bayou Lafourche 123 iii Tim Colton Newport News Shipbuilding 124 Bath Iron Works 125 The PDEC shipyard in Batangas 126 Chapter 14: The shipyard in Panama – Astilleros Braswell 131 The shipyard in Tampa – now Tampa Ships 134 Grand Bahama Shipyard 137 Philadelphia Naval Shipyard 138 Brownsville’s dry-dock – formerly the Los Alamos (AFDB 7) 139 Chapter 15: One of the Petrodrill rigs 144 The oceangoing ferry Kennicott 146 The house in Biloxi 147 The millennium cruise ship 148 The CNOOC derrick/pipe-lay barge 149 Chapter 16: One of the Qatargas LNG carriers 158 After the storm 161 The Caffé Luna Rosa 164 The view from the office 165 iv Chapter 1 WHY NOT SHIPBUILDING? I didn't set out to be a shipbuilder but I have only myself to blame for becoming one. Career guidance was a little thin on the ground when I was wondering what to do for a living. At the prestigious prep school, just outside Oxford, that I had the good fortune to attend, I was a mathematician and it was taken for granted that I would go on to the famous university along the road and thence to whatever career it was that a mathematician might profitably pursue. But my father was absolutely clear: Oxford was too expensive and, if I wanted to go to a university, someone else would have to pay. This created something of a problem not only for me but also for the school, which was not used to its bright young men doing anything other than going on to either Oxford or Cambridge. I'm not sure that they knew of the existence of other universities, at least at that time. Certainly, there was not a single master on the staff who was not a graduate of one of the two biggies. Generally speaking, if you couldn't get into either Oxford or Cambridge, you went into the Army or into Daddy's business. I discussed the problem with the master whose responsibilities included careers guidance. I asked him what a mathematician did for a living. This was apparently a real poser. He thought very long and very hard and decided that it was either banking or insurance. Of course, his idea of a career in banking was something elegant and not too taxing at a well regarded merchant bank in the City of London, preferably the one that handled the Queen's money. Certainly not retail banking. Similarly, insurance, to him, meant Lloyd's, not State Farm. A technical career of any kind would never have occurred to him: manufacturing was simply not something one did. In retrospect, this was bizarre, because I soon discovered that many of my contemporaries were, in fact, the sons of engineers. Even more amazingly, a slightly older near-contemporary has just published a memoir of his 50 years in the shipbuilding industry. Anyway, I left school in December 1957 without having either a place at a university or a job to go to. For a while I hung around my parents' house and the public library, half-heartedly doing what could be described now, in retrospect, as research, and wondering if it wouldn't be a good idea to do some time in the Army and put off the making of career decisions. I was in the first age group that did not have to do National Service and I rather regretted this. To a product of the English public Tim Colton school system, National Service was what you did for two years between school and university. Not only did it hold no fears after the rigors of life at a public school, but it was widely regarded as both valuable and fun. To miss it because I was six weeks too young was something of a disappointment. Although National Service was over, however, there was still something called Short Service. This was an entirely voluntary enlistment for a minimum of three years and had the attraction of being much better paid than the two years of National Service. I now considered this course. Before taking this drastic step, however, I managed to work out through my "research" that the answer to my career problem was something called engineering. This was not something that had ever been mentioned at school but it seemed to me that engineering would allow me to put my mathematical skills to work. And I soon discovered to my further delight that engineering firms actually paid for bright young men to go to university. So far so good, but what branch of engineering should I honor with my presence? Having had absolutely no exposure to industry of any kind, not even my father's, and never even having seen a factory from a distance, I had little feel for the relative attractions of the different fields and I fumbled my way through several interviews, effectively demonstrating my lack of knowledge of the businesses that I was professing to want to join. I was rescued from this mire of indecision by my recently acquired brother-in-law. My older sister was married to a genial bloke called Norman Cowderoy, who was a shipbroker with H. Clarkson & Company, in London, specializing in the sale and purchase of ships. Clarksons were then, as they still are today, the world leader in the shipbroking business. I had, in fact, spent the preceding summer vacation in Norman's office, reorganizing his punch-card file of ships that had been or might again be for sale. Norman, whose brother was a civil engineer in Southern Rhodesia, building the great Kariba Dam, had already been helpful in my floundering around the engineering world, and it was now he who said to me the magic words, "Why Not Shipbuilding?" and thereby saved my life. Why not, indeed? In no time at all, I had paid a visit to the Shipbuilding Employers’ Federation's offices in London and been selected for its management training program. This meant that, if I could find a shipbuilder to take me on, I would do a five-year apprenticeship which would include studying naval architecture either at Glasgow University or at King's College, Newcastle. Step forward Norman once again. He introduced me to Ross Belch, who was at that time Assistant Managing Director of the very well known firm of Lithgows Limited, in Port Glasgow, on the lower reaches of the famous River Clyde. A quick trip to Scotland for an interview with Mr. Belch and I was ready to start my career in shipbuilding. 2 Staying Afloat The Early Years Although this is a memoir of the shipbuilding industry rather than an autobiography, some personal background is required in order to set the stage for what is to come.