Some of the old skippers were a law unto themselves,this may be ok in some cir***stances, but a few of them, sitting in their ivory towers overstretched the boundaries

 

4th engineer Mv Ronsard

Hi there I did three trips on the Ronsard in 1961,at that time she was only four years old and she was very nice,I love those Centre Scavenge North Eastern Marine Doxfords. I used to have a lot of fun in B.A Rio and Monte.
My Name is Morris Robertson a little Scots man who now lives in Canada and has done for the past forty years.
All the best Morris

 

Hi Morris,

I sailed on Ronsard too in the sixties. She was very prone to Scavenger Fires and had quite a few whilst I was on her. I sailed on her older sister Raphael who never had a scavenger fire in the two years I was on her and was the faster of the two. Strange really considering Ronsard was the newer ship.

regards

Chris.

 

The possible reason that Ronsard was slower than Raphael is if she was
prone to scavenge fires, they could have been running the main engine
a few revs slower, this is the classic way to prevent scavenge fires.
As far as I can remember Raphael and Ronsard were identical ( apart from
the 'garden shed' on top of the bridge, on Ronsard.

 

Raphael

Hi, my brother Robert Scully sailed on Raphael in 68/69. He was only a kid of 15 or 16 at the time but looked about 12! He was pantry boy and says they were a great bunch of lads on the ship.

Best wishes,

Tracey.

 

Scully it was much earlier that I was on the Raphael, it looks like she was always a happy ship reading all the reports in here, It was sad to hear she has been broken up

 

Do any of you remember a middy nicknamed 'steam on deck' ? I met him one night when Rossini and another L+H boat were in a South American port. He got completely drunk, came aboard our ship and proceeded to bang on the skippers cabin door at 2am. I made myself scarce as I was a Cadet and we sailed the next day. Don't know if he ever got found out.

 

Hi,
I have been looking thru all threads and see no mention of Dryden I sailed on her in the late 60,s before she was scrapped. I was AB. and Mylecrest was capt. the mate was a welsh man called Jones and it was the year that a scottish football team won the European cup ,the first uk team to do so.
Argyll;

 

I stood by on Dryden for about a week in 1969 as a cadet in Liverpool.She had one hold full of hoofs and horns from South America and the smell was dreadful. I was given a passenger cabin as there were no cadet cabins and it was bigger than the Mates. I was told I could not use the bath in it as the Mates did not have them in theirs.

 

I joined the Reaburn 6.3.73 and did 7 trips on her until 27.9.74 Very fond memories of the time sailing to South America, unfortunately my father died will on leave after the last trip on the Raeburn, and did not go back deep sea and started dredging which I have done ever since.

 

Did several trips as an engr. on both the Ronsard and the Rafael in 1967 - 68
they were really good ships, and crews.
L & H had a well known Irish 2nd engr. Ben Smith who I got on very well with,
Can any of you guys remember him or even know his where abouts.
Lean & Hungry were a good company to work for, but all good things come to an end.
Anybody know the fate of the Ronsard ?.

 

The Ronsard was sold in 1980 to Obestain Inc. Panama being renamed Obestain, made her last voyage on 8/8/1981 from Bangkok to Taiwan and was scrapped at Kaohsiung.

Chris.

 

Funny that, I sailed on both the Raphael And Ronsard and I never knew the
Raphael was faster !!!.
We never had any scavenge fire's on either ship, The Hollybank of Bank Line ( P type Doxford ) was the one for scavenge fires we had about 2 dozen in 6 months.
What good times were had by all in Monte and Santos.
Those were the days.

 

Thanks for that Chris,
What a shame !, suppose it happens to us all one day !!!.

 

Sure does John,

For info, Raphael was sold in 06/1976 to Carnation Shipping Co., Limassol and renamed Pola Rika, she then went to Allegro Marine Co., Limassol. Same name

In 1979 she was sold to Hemesa Shipbreaking, Gijon where she was scrapped 30/05/1979

Kind regards

Chris.

 

here's a different pic of Raphael

 

Which is not a lot different to this one, John.(EEK)

I took the one you posted just after someone took this one of me.
The version you posted seems to have disappeared from my gallery for some reason.:sweat:

At least we all recognise a great looking ship.(Thumb)

It's Dublin in September 1967.

 

A long-gone former schoolmate of mine, Gordon Lathan, from memory joined L&H in the 60s. Anyone remember him?

Cheers, Geoff

 

Gordon Lathan



Hi
Yes I remember me! I may be long but I'm not gone. Please reveal
yourself! I was with L & H from 1964 to 1970 and thoroughly enjoyed it, meeting some great people
Regards
Gordon

 

Quote Marconi Sahib:
Which is not a lot different to this one, John.

I took the one you posted just after someone took this one of me.
The version you posted seems to have disappeared from my gallery for some reason.

Hi-- I did not when posting in the thread, and do not,claim authorship of the pic--- I am intrigued that you do so, as it gives it an origin,and in no way do I doubt your assertion. I'm not sure from your post if you have taken offence-- if that is so,accept my apology and assurance that none was intended. I have searched the SN gallery, and all the threads,but can find no earlier submission of this pic.If you were to examine all my posts, it would be seen that I have credited pics where appropriate, or posted urls to direct members to other sites,rather than claiming pics for myself-- my profile indicates that I sailed only in Souter managed ships,yet I have posted many pics of other ships of other lines etc.

I have referred in the past (eg on my post of "Duquesa")to having obtained CDs of images of ships-- these are all uncredited, and frankly a hotch-potch of ships of all eras. It was my assumption that they were generally collected from the public domain at varying points in time.

To clarify-- the pic of Raphael is not mine, I own a copy of the image, I do not claim ownership nor do I know it's provenance.I do not doubt Marconi Sahib's claim to the origin of the image.I believed ,at the time of posting, it to be an unknown image to SN, and submitted it only to assist members.I trust that this will satisfy any concerns?

 

Marconi Sahib:

Further to the above:

it occurred to me to search again all the threads. Indeed,your image can be found as a thumb at:
http://www.shipsnostalgia.com/showthread.php?t=7306&highlight=raphael

post #13,pic 3 of 3

posted 17 August this year--and it is quite evidently the same pic. That explains why you can't find it in your gallery-- cos it's a thumb on a thread!

I have seen remarks on shipspotting about pics having been misappropriated from that site and appearing on SN, and also remarks on here about pics also being misappropriated. It appears that this is one such too-- to that end I have deleted the image from my files.I have no need of it as there is an image already on this site.

I hope you are happy with this situation.

 

Sorry John

I didn't mean to get at you in any way. My apologies if that's how it sounded.

The fact is I was amazed and couldn't figure where it had come from. I thought I had posted it in my gallery and then couldn't find it. Since it wasn't there I assumed it had either been deleted in error or I had made a mistake. After a lot of messing about I realised that the size I had reduced it to meant that I must have posted it in a thread and filed it as a gallery post. My mistake. So then I searched for the thread just to make sure. You're correct that I posted it in August.

Since I've never posted any of my photographs on the internet before at one stage I was beginning to wonder how you had got a copy of it. I don't object to them being used once I've posted them especially like that one which I had not cleaned in any way. If you post on the internet it almost becomes public property immediately so there can be no argument about copyright or displeasure at it being used by someone else.

Since you obviously didn't know the origin of the photograph I felt I had to make that clear. Probably a little too bluntly for which I apologise again. Maybe a PM would've been better.

 

Last entry re this,then it goes to bed!-- I took no exception whatsoever to the remark;you are quite justified in drawing attention to the fact that you are author of the image--and I felt mortified that I has used your image (albeit unwittingly), but as I said it did not appear when I searched the Gallery before posting . I guess that you're correct, in that anyone can take any imge from a site-- probably why some people caption theirs-- but I feel as you do-- anyone can do as they wish with anything I post on here.Thanks for the understanding,and best wishes.

 

Hello Santos.
If you have a close look at the colour photo of the Ronsard that you posted
you can see smoke coming from her No.1 hold, I presume that this photo must have been taken in 1967 either in the English channel or the Thames
estury, after No.1 hold caught fire after taking on bunkers in the Canary
Islands on the way home .

 

Being no longer able to throw anything away concerned with my seagoing days I have boxes full of useless information.

This is just such an example.

It's a graph of speed against time for the Raphael from March to June 1967. It was plotted at the time from noon positions, which I also have in the same logbook. I don't suppose the same figures are available for the Ronsard so a comparison can be made?

I don't have one for the second trip but the noon positions tend to indicate a maximum of 16.18kts with an average around 15.5kts.

This first one was the trip I spent my 21st birthday in Santos!
It's no wonder I enjoyed the 2 trips so much when you see that the trip is almost exactly 50-50 port and sea time.(==D)

 

Great to read the reminiscences of the Ronsard, Raphael et al.My father was the first Bosn of the Ronsard from 1957 until 1964 when came ashore. He was also the first Bosn of the Delius when shew was new in 1937.At the time John Hughes was in the Rubens he was in the Rossetti on the west Indies to Canada run until the crew were brought home to the UK in the Hilary and I met him in Liverpool
They were great days and great people.I remember the Bosn of the Raphael,Freddy Page.again a friend of my father and a lovely man.

Jackc

 

Yes, Mr Page became the shore Bosun in charge of the Shoregang. Nice chap.

Chris.