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Esso Northumbria

69K views 59 replies 39 participants last post by  stuartcooper35 
#1 ·
None of these shots are mine-two from a friend who was her Master at one time and one from the mass of old press cuttings in my loft!
The first shows her under construction,then her launch-not the best quality I/m afraid and lastly a weather deck view off the South African coast in her first year of operation.
I think she still holds the record for the largest number of people to attend a launch on Tyneside.
 

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#34 ·
I did two trips on the Northumbria and don't recall her being any worse than others including the 'D' boats. Think the second trip was shortly after the rudder episope and remeber a photo of her under repair with her stern in the air. Anyone got a copy to post? Got a couple of old Mariners with crew lists in - could try and post these if anyones interested.
 
#35 ·
I remember seeing her bows on the slip at wallsend when the Tyne tunnel was opened in 1967.I was in the Northumberland Hussars TAVR unit from Blyth and part of the opening ceremony honor guard.Who would have guessed i would be part of the trials crew as a JOS in 69.We left the slip with no ballast,no fuel and no supplys of any kind.The ship had 5 tugs on her,3 on the bows and 2 on the stern,i think there was 2 more standing by.As we went down the tyne i could not belive how many people had turned out to watch her.As we proceded to go thru Tynemouth Jettys,we had 1ft to spare on either side.We anchored offshore and proceeded to take on supplys and fuel/oil for the main engines and generators to get ready for sea trials.
Jim,
I think your memory is fading a bit, the distance between the piers at the mouth of the Tyne is 1200 feet - not even the Northumbria was that wide(Jester)
 
#38 ·
I never sailed on the Northumbria, but I flew out to Aruba with a Captain Steele, his last ship was the Northumbria. We were joining the Lincoln, this was in the early seventies, I was 3rd mate. Due to a cock up in the travel arrangements we missed the Lincoln and spent a (very enjoyable) week in Aruba. I also served on the Demetia and a couple of the coasters, Brixham and Woolston (not very enjoyable being a deep sea man).
 
#39 ·
I sailed on Scotis, Ulidia, Caledonia, Northumbria. The Scotia was my favourite, of course she was a continental build, Holland I think. She was one of the first British ships to have satellite navigation on trial. About 12 accurate positions in 24 ours if i remember correctly. I was with Esso from 1969 to 1974, i enjoyed their 3 month trips, i had only done 2 trips before on trampships, a 4 year trip and a 2 year trip !!!!!. The benefit was that i was 3rd. mate at 17 1/2 years] Arthur Ryan
 
#41 ·
The Northumbria cost 4 million pounds to build. When she drydocked in Lisbon after a year, one of Swan Hunter engineers who was involved in the construction, was sent out to help sort out some of the problems. I remember pointing out that three brackets supported the extended spindle from the deck to the vale in the forepeak tank. He said" what do you expect for the money".
A large number of the cargo valve spindles were off line with the deck actuators.
We found that the cargo sea valve chest was only about 3mm thick in places due to corrosion, (anodes were placed in the chests)

Bill Connolly
 
#44 ·
Hello Alex,
Sorry for the delay in responding. I have been away from this site for some time now I thought your name was familiar, and yes Ian Smith was Master on the Scotia during my time there and Bob Butchart was the Chief. I think Jackie Aalen was the mate and we also had a supernumery Mate who later was involved in developing training courses. His name excapes me at the moment , but I do recall he had Esso blood running through his veins.Lovewd my time on the Scotia.
My wife Ann did a trip with me on the Scotia.
 
#45 ·
I also sailed with Captain Steele on a few occasions. He insisted on taking his own sights regardless of how efficient his navigatring officers were.He usually took to his cabin as soon as we neared the channel after an ocean passage, he was a pleasant guy though. I met him many years later in Bantry where I was Marine Supervisor for Gulf Oil and he was a guest at one of our seminars/Displays . He was then Examiner for Masters & Mates ion Belfast.
 
#46 ·
I’ve just discovered ‘Ship Nostalgia’, and am fascinated by the many posts which are critical of the ‘Northumbria’. I was closely involved with some research in the months before she was launched, and hope the following may be of interest.

A number of posters have hinted at the huge step forward in the size of this vessel, and I would like to emphasise this because everyone at the time was very aware of it! Factoring up the design from smaller tankers may in the end not have proved adequate, but little was available by way of an alternative. Computerised stress analysis was fairly well developed in theory, but was still severely limited by the computing power then available. The most up-to-date computer analyses of ship structures in Britain had only recently been completed by the Admiralty, and the British Ship Research Association (also based in Wallsend) was in close and confidential touch with them. As a result, Britain’s largest engineering consultants were engaged, in effect to try and predict the stresses within all parts of the hull. However, these predictions were restricted to the effects of static forces, ie excluding complex dynamic effects arising from the vessel’s normal environment! Seems strange, but that was where naval science was in the 1960s.

In parallel with the above research, Swan Hunter permitted BSRA to place a huge number of strain gauges at critical locations within the hull and, as noted by one poster, this may well have been the first time a control room was set aside on a vessel for the purpose of monitoring those gauges. I believe that post-launch and pre-commissioning an extensive set of tests were carried out at sea, and that in fact the strain gauge readings corresponded well with the computer predictions. That latter part of the research was published at the time by BSRSA and may now be in the public domain.

The ‘Northumbria’ was designed and built right on the leading-edge of computational analysis, and it is perhaps of interest that, simply onf the grounds of computational scale, the above research had to be done (albeit by an English company) using an American computer at a German university! The progress and outcome of that research were watched closely by the interested parties, which included both European classification societies (Lloyds Register and Det Norske Veritas).

I had the privilege of descending from the deck into the bowels of the hull for a short visit when the strain gauges were being placed, perhaps a rare instance of a ‘civilian’ being allowed close to the workface so to speak. The ‘Northumbria’ and her sisters still stagger when viewing the contemporary photos while under construction, and I can confirm that she was even more impressive when viewed from within!

(Sorry if some of the above uses some non-nautical terminology).
 
#48 ·
I did the maiden voyage on "Big Geordie", Joined her in Lisbon day before being handed over to Esso.
Didn't have too many problems on first voyage apart from Canal Searchlight cover having being ripped away from the hull, it was re-welded back in place,the second problem was having to strip down the Emgy Fire P/P up for'd as seas had gone down the for'd facing exhaust and been too much for the drain to cope with and filled the R/R engine with seawater.
We also had a problem with the main radiant roof boiler which had to be shut down at sea and we used the auxy boiler to sail along making just a few knots.
Another serious incident was after the maiden voyage was the furnace fire we had while in Fawley while flashing up, which melted some of the primary superheater tubes, consequently that superheater had to be by-passed and we sailed without it.
Those were just a few of the problems I can memember on the first 4 months of service of "Big Geordie".
Mike
 
#51 ·
All very true Noelk, as the largest vessel ever built by the Yard was launched and Fitted Out the lessons were passed on to the next even larger vessel ever built by the Yard and so on. I liked the space and the facilities that were provided on the V.L. Vessel's having moved across from Tramps. However, in my case witnessing two Hull failures and hearing about the explosions in a very short period of time left me feeling very uncomfortable which led me to make a move away from them.
 
#52 ·
Hi all, this thread was very interesting to me, I helped to build this vessel and all of the 8 VLCC's built by Swan Hunters. I was a foreman fitter installing all machinery in the engine room including piping systems, the 2 Esso and the Texaco ship had father and son boilers, and huge Lungstom air heaters, the other 5 tankers had 2 boilers and conventional air heaters, if I remember correctly only the Texaco ship had a large diesel generator and 1 turbo alternator all the rest had 2 turbo's. Some of the ships had Coffin turbo feed pumps and some had those wonderful Weirs TWL feed pumps, frightening things in a blackout situation, unable to stop them until a main condensate pump was restarted otherwise they would seize up. The Northumbria spent 2 weeks at anchor off the Tyne doing stability trials prior to sea trials and she did have some problems with her LP turbine which required the replacement of the LP rotor. Esso were being a little awkward just prior to hand over and the director in charge for Swans told them all to leave the ship and come back when they were willing to sign to accept the vessel.
All the criticism seems to be about the poor build and non about the way these vessels were operated, this seems a bit unfair, could the cracking not be the result of the loading and ballasting proceedures, and the solidified sludge must be down to the crew.

Micky
 
#55 ·
Having served my time in a Shipyard I still think it is a remarkable turnaround from a load of flat steel plate in the Stockyard to a superb ship on its way down river and off to sea, designed and built in the pre computer age.(Thumb). Mistakes were made but we were at the beginning of a new age in Shipbuilding in both the building and sailing of such large vessel's.
 
#57 ·
Esso Northumbria...… God knows why, but I was just thinking about this fine vessel a few days ago. I was thinking about the worst trip ever.... no, not the "Northumbria" but the awful 1946-built ex-US Army coastal freighter, the "Labuan Hadji" which took over three days in December '81 to take us relief crew from Singapore to somewhere off Thailand to join the "Northumbria" where she had been floating around awaiting her fate for some time. I got off a few months later in Johore and think the ship was then sailed to be broken up.
 
#58 ·
That takes me back. I was standing by the Atlantic Conveyor & Atlantic Causeway at the same time, living in digs in Whitley Bay. Travelling to Walker Navy Yard each morning the train passed near to the Esso Northumbria which loomed over the nearby houses. That would have been in the Autumn of 1969. It seems a long time ago.

Howard
 
#59 ·
Some of you may be interested to learn that someone has written a song about the Big Geordie. It is called "Roll Northumbria" and you can find it on YouTube, recorded by a Canadian folk-rock group called The Dreadnoughts. It was written by one of their members called Nicholas Smyth (Smythe?), and you can best describe it as in the style of 19th century sea songs such as "The Alabama". There are several factual errors in the song ( she never spilled oil which caught fire, as far as I know ) but I'm fascinated that the bloke should clearly know as much as he does about a ship built way before he was born. Anyone know if he has some sort of family connection?
I'm quite an enthusiast for traditional sea songs and shanties , and its very rare to find a modern one - despite its inaccuracies I really like it.
 
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