MY ADVENTURES AT SEA From Port Hobart to Shenzhen Bay Captain Derek William Lax Page 1 of 58 Well then dear reader you might ask where I got the urge to sail the seven seas. It must have been in the early 1950’s when my Uncle Ernie used to take me to Middleton every weekend. In those days Hartlepool had thriving docks with ships coming from Russia and the Baltic carrying thousands and thousands of pit props for all of Durham’s coalmines, plus lots and lots of coal ships carrying coal from the mines to power the power stations of London. There was also a big fleet of Navy ships in the docks and a thriving fishing industry. As I grew older, I would be down there as often as time allowed, drinking in the atmosphere and dreaming of faraway places. When I left West Hartlepool Boy’s Grammar School in 1964 I got a place at South Shields Marine and Technical College, travelling there every day by train and bus. It was here I got my basic training for a life at sea. Apart from the academic stuff we did all sorts of practical things like sail and row lifeboats on the River Tyne and learn about many aspects of cargo ships equipment. In my year there I passed out as top navigating student of the year and appeared on Tyne Tees television as it was then to talk about my future career. The Careers Officer pointed me in the right direction and I applied for and in 1965 gained an Indentured Deck Apprentice Position with a Premier UK cargo shipping Company called Port Line. I and two colleagues from South Shields Marine and Tech, Peter Carter and Rudyard Kipling (honest), were the first three apprentices to be accepted by Port Line from a minor college, usually they only accepted people from the big Maritime training ships, Conway and Worcester plus the London Schools. Port Line ran refrigerated passenger cargo liners (12 passengers and a Doctor) from the UK to Australia and New Zealand mainly, but sometimes to America, the Caribbean and Japan. We carried all sorts of things to Australia from the Page 2 of 58 UK, motor cars, chemicals, steel, household goods, furniture, food stuffs; you name it we carried it, all loose and needing lots of manual labour from the dock workers to load and discharge it. On our return from Australia and New Zealand we would be fully loaded with frozen lamb, butter, cheese, powdered milk, wool, or apples and pears. In those heady days of 1965 to about 1973 the dock workers in Australia and New Zealand only worked Monday to Friday 8 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon, so as Apprentices we used to have plenty of time to explore all the different ports, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, in Australia and Auckland, Wellington, Timaru and Bluff in New Zealand to name but a few. We also managed to do a lot of swimming and sunbathing on the wonderful beaches, visit opal mines in Australia and the beautiful snow-capped mountains and fjords of New Zealand. The ships and the life we lead. My first ship was called the Port Hobart; she was built during the 1939-45 war as the Empire Wessex and taken up by Port Line as a replacement for Company ships lost during the conflict. I joined her in London on a wet and windy night in November after travelling down in full uniform on the train. Mam and Dad accompanied me as far as York and Dad’s parting words to me that morning were ―you are on your own now son, make the most of it‖. As I climbed the gangway that night the First person I met was the Bosun who was going ashore for a drink. I didn’t know who he was so I saluted him and asked if he knew who I should report to. He let me know in no uncertain manner that he was the famous Murdo McLeod and he didn’t fraternise with snotty Apprentices. We were to become firm friends later along with the Carpenter, Joe from Sunderland and the Lamp Trimmer Harry from God knows where the three most important Deck Crew Members. Page 3 of 58 I eventually found the Duty Deck Officer and was allocated my Cabin which was a tiny 4 berth rabbit hutch at the back of the Boat Deck, one bed room with 4 bunks, one shower toilet and one small day room and very primitive heating. Two of the other Apprentices were already on board and I would meet Ian the other First tripper on Monday morning. We were in London for about a week loading general cargo for Australia then sailed off into the blue (actually storm tossed grey) the next weekend. Down the English Channel we went, the seas getting rougher and rougher until we reached the Bay of Biscay. Here it was blowing a full gale with heavy seas breaking over the ship, the Chief Officer (Drunken Duncan Campbell) said it was time for me to learn to steer, so there I was 17 years old getting my first lesson in the middle of a gale. I took the big old wooden steering wheel in my trembling hands and was soon off course and heading towards America instead of the Mediterranean!! Poor Ian was violently Sea Sick and for all his time at sea thereafter suffered whenever the weather got rough. Anyway we ploughed on through the next couple of days and the weather slowly improved as we approached the Suez Canal. The Canal was a wondrous place seen for the first time, a 60 mile channel dug through the desert linking the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. We saw Camels roaming the banks, small towns and Oasis and ships coming the other way apparently floating over the sand as they passed us in the two way section. It took us 14 hours to get through, the weather warmed up and everybody was in good spirits. Shortly after leaving the Canal and entering the Gulf of Suez disaster struck, we had a small electrical fire that damaged the Steering arrangements from the Bridge to the Steering room so we could not steer the ship. Luckily we had a back-up system where we could steer from right at the back of the ship. This consisted of a huge Mechanical Steering wheel which took 2 men to turn and so for 48 hours whilst the engineers mended the fault from the bridge the sailors manfully steered the ship day and night using this massive heavyweight contraption. Down the Red Sea we went and eventually arrived at Aden where we were to take on fuel oil to get us to Australia and New Zealand, here we had more trouble, as the ship entered harbour we went to the anchorage and as we dropped the anchor the anchor chain snapped and the anchor fell loose into the Page 4 of 58 sea; we quickly dropped the other one and the ship came to a majestic halt just about in position. Of course we now had the problem of fixing the spare anchor (weight 2000kg) to the broken chain so the ship was safe with two working anchors. The temperature was 40C and not a breath of air, it was like being in a furnace, anyway we got a barge to come alongside, lowered the spare anchor into it and reconnected the chain, the fun then started. As we lifted the anchor back up it caught on the end of the barge, Duncan the Bosun and Joe the Carpenter thought that this was clever and continued pulling the anchor up; of course the barge rose out of the water and the Arabs who had been helping reattach the anchor started to scream and jump into the harbour waters. Bosun eventually took pity on them and lowered the barge back into the water and the anchor was returned to its stowage position. Whilst we were in Aden I bought my first proper 35mm film camera a little Russian Zenit and a couple of rolls of film, this served me well for quite a few years letting me record my travels to show the folks back home, The pictures are still knocking about somewhere. From Aden we rolled on down to Australia watching dolphins, whales and flying fish almost every day in the Southern Indian Ocean. I was learning my trade quickly by now and had started to learn the ways of the world and what a hard but exciting career I had chosen. As well as doing general work round the ship we also did long distance learning with exams at the end of each year of my 4 year Apprenticeship, big head I passed them all with flying colours!!. We were now in the southern hemisphere summer and arrived at our first Australian port of Adelaide on Boxing Day 1965. My first Christmas Day at Sea had gone down really well, a sumptuous feast dining with the passengers and Officers for a change, we lowly Apprentices usually ate earlier than the senior Officers during normal days. Another bonus arriving in port meant I got my first letters from Page 5 of 58 home since leaving London in November, two from your great grandma (my mam) and one from Aileen my wife to be who I had been seeing for over a year, Aileen would have been your Grandma had she lived long enough to see you born, she died on 31 January 2010.