Oil spill!

[Philthechill]

A beautiful, balmy Mediterranean evening, port-holes open, ship ("Maskeliya") gently rolling and a group of us, "The Duke of Bootle", Jake Donnelly, Rod McRae (J4E) and myself (5E) enjoying a few beers in Jimmy Story's "bustee" and yarning about the voyage, which would be ending in about a week, when we arrived in Tilbury.
This tranquil scenario came to a sudden end when the unmistakeable smell of Bunker "C" started wafting in through the open port-hole!!!
The Duke left Jimmy's cabin at great speed (he was stood by the open door) and went out on deck to reappear, seconds later, with his white shoes glistening black and shouting that there was oil pouring out of the starboard settling-tank goose-neck! Jake leapt up and raced down below to see what was the reason for this anomaly finding the 4th, Brian Cotterill was pumping the starb'd settling-tank tank up but had forgotten about it, being engrossed in something else. There was a high-high level alarm on the settling tank but it either wasn't working or Brian had "gagged" it.
Whatever the reason for its not working the net result was quite a lot of oil had gone over the wall!!!
The Mate (Bill someone-or-other whose name escapes me now. Very well-spoken bloke and an absolute gentleman) had got the ship beautifully painted-up ready for arrival Tilbury and, the following morning, he wasn't exactly ecstatic when he saw the after-end of the ship spattered with great blotches of black fuel-oil all over his pristine white paint!!!!
He got the crew hard at work with gallons of turps and soogee and got the worst of it off but the white line, on the starboard side of the ship, was missing a considerable part, where the oil had overflowed, and had to remain "as was"!
Brian was as popular as a dose of crabs (not that I'm speaking from experience---of course!!!) with "The Duke", over this incident, as he had to try work-out how much oil had been jettisoned and try juggle his consumption rates to suit! (Probably went up from 63 tons a day to 10,000!!!!!) Brian was mortally embarrassed about it and later on when he had reached God-like status (as Super) he denied it ever happened!!!!(Thumb) Salaams, Phil

[japottinger]

I recall an oil spill, but not on on a Brocklebank ship.
In Houston on Manipur a few of us were coming back to the ship one night when passing a Liberty berthed ahead we saw a black sheen down her side amidships.
As was obviously an oil spill we went aboard to see if we could rouse anybody to make them aware of what was happening, first we saw was the furniture floating in oil in the cabins on the main deck!
The alleyways were full and fuel was running everywhere, never did find anybody, so told the guy on the quay to stop pumping and went back to the ship.
Lost count of the number of tapes I have sliced off by the shut off cock in the shaft tunnel on the Maihar when bunkering after eyeballing the black tide coming up the sounding pipe, no phones, just had to run up to the engine room door and shout to the guy at the voice pipe beside the telegraph which was connected to the bunkering station which was in a small recess amidships on deck.

[makko]

We were in Savannah (another story, grounding momentarily and missing the bridge by a few feet) when the local authorities came on board to investigate "an oil spillage". We had recently been "arrested" in NOLA, as a Bay boat had hit a bulker coming out of Suez and then received a fine coming down the Mississippi when the dopey Cadet thought the marker posts were a mile apart when they were actually two miles apart. I was on stand-by and my first reaction was "what the---now!".

After showing the authorities banjo blanks in the overboards, functioning oily water separator, discharges to slops etc. they retired. A couple of hours later, we sailed as planned.

It turned out that a Japanese vessel had decided to chuck a bit of oil in the river, call the authorities and report the oil spill from our ship!!

Well, they were detained and we got all the boxes around the coast! We definitely started the voyage "fully loaded"!

Regards,

Dave

[Derek Roger]

In the late 60s there was a story doing the "rounds " of a Brocklebank ship ( I dont recollect the name ; but I think Douggie Ruddock aka The Duke of Bootle or Magull was chief )
Legend had it that while bunkering in Aden from a barge on the portside a royal mess occurred as a result of the 4th Engineer leaving the bunker main shut off in the engine room shut and apparently the the starboard bunker station valve had been left open from a previous bunkering and the blank flange had not been put in place . Many tons when straight over the side into Aden harbor. Pollution regulations were quite lax at that time and the main concern was how much fuel was lost !!
Any Brock lads able to shed any more light ???
Derek

[R58484956]

Pumped about 30 tons of fuel oil onto a newly painted ship whilst transferring from deep to ready use tank, Chief was worried about his pension, mate went berserk, master not happy, crew absolutely delighted with all the overtime that ensued. The 8/12 just forgot that we were pumping, we were busy yarning. We were on a Union Castle black hulled ship.

[Ron Stringer]

Whilst on E&F's 'Golfito', during the night something went wrong whilst transferring bunkers and a tank was overflowed. We were somewhere in the Atlantic and there was a bit of a wind blowing. By the time that someone detected a strong smell of fuel oil and went looking, it was everywhere. The ship was normally all white above the waterline [apart from the funnel] but oh!, what a sight greeted the Chief Officer's eyes as day broke. And his normally gleaming, holystoned teak decks....

The atmosphere was rather chilly in the saloon for the rest of the trip.