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Nauru Shipping

67K views 103 replies 44 participants last post by  alamanda.lauti 
#1 ·
Leaving the thread on "Union Auckland" on Union Shipping , NZ, hereby the story of Nauru Shipping of Nauru, a small Polynesian island.
This shipping company operated several ships in the 70's and 80's out of Nauru Building, Melbourne.
Bulkcarriers Rosie-D and Kolle-D regularly picked up phosphate from Nauru to Australia.
They also operated "Eigigu" and "Eigamoya" , both standard cargo ships and also looked after a large fishing boat.
The company folded early 90's.
Is there anybody with more information?I knew all vessels very well, supervised drydockings in Melbourne and elsewhere and hereby some pics of Kolle-D which docked in Subic Bay, Philippines in 1982. And yes that is a young me on the photo.
The dockyard Philseco was established and initially operated by Kawasaki Japan who send about 40 Japanese technicians.
Kolle-D was the 4th ship to drydock in this massive 500.000 tonnes drydock.

"Kolle-D used an exceptional good quality anitfouling"
 

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#2 ·
KOLLE D (1973/19,564grt)was also a regular visitor to New Zealand, mainly to North Island ports.
The ROSIE D I don't think came here much.
EIGAMOIYA (1969/4,426grt) I saw in Auckland a couple of times, she came for drydocking, but otherwise she never came here. I believe she was built as a supply ship for the Island, with the capability of being able to lay and retrieve the large buoys used around the Island. I always thought of her as a particularly attractive little ship.
EIGUGU was another of the fleet that used to come to Auckland for docking.
ENNA G (1961/9,423) was another of their ships. She was built as the PRINSES MARGRIET in 1961 for the Dutch Oranje Lijn for their Europe - St. Lawrence - Great Lakes service.
The funnel colours used by the Nauru Pacific Line are interesting. The dark blue of the funnel represents the ocean, the narrow yellow band stands for the equator with a twelve pointed white star below it - Nauru being situated just south of the equator. The twelve pointed star represents the twelve basic tribal groups in Nauru.
 
#3 ·
Thanks for the story David.
Yes, I also remember the Enna-G , however, they did not operate that vessel for a long time.
I visit my old office later this week, so will try to dust off some archives, there must be thousands of photos gathered over the years, but have to try and find them.
The "Eigigu" was originally British I think.
The "Eigamoya" has been laid up in Melbourne many times.
Each time Nauru Shipping did not pay their bills, then the easiest we did was to arrest the Eigamoya.
I presented accounts to the sherriff's office and bingo within 2 weeks the funds were released.
At one stage the vessel was there over a year with only 4 crew members on board until she was sold.
Nauru went bankrupt and even had to sell "Nauru House" a 53 storey building in the centre of Melbourne.
 
#5 · (Edited)
In fact it was the Enna-G which was laid up for over a year alongside the Duke and Orr Drydock in Melbourne at the time.
I remember having been on board various times, they had a crew of 4, just getting paid to keep watch.
I remember the Dutch names on the cabins and also some teakwood panelling and doors, the ex" Prinses Margriet".

The Enna-G is probably gone and so is the shipyard in Melbourne.
The floating dock was shipped to China by a huge Chinese tugboat, but both the dock and the tugboat sank halfway, this is back in the late eighties.
I know I took photos, but where are they...?
 
#9 ·
Now we are getting to the details.
Yes. There was Bill Shorton, a Scotchman, and John Loving, the latter died of a heart attack some 10 years ago.
I heard that Bill Shorton has also said this world farewell.
So the dockmaster was Geoff Nelson, good old Geoff, after Duke and Orr disappeared, I mean the floating dock, (read: sank halfway Melbourne and China) then Geoff took over the one and only small slipway left in Melbourne, straight below the Westgate Bridge.
I had many ships to look after on this slip,. but only few months ago, it all disappeared.
The slipway is still there, but it is one of those fantastic government bureacratic money spending endless bottom pit schemes for which tax payers pay the price (as always).
The multi million dollar train track over Duke and Orr has cost the taxpayers millions and millions and we never saw a train passing until it was demolished couple of years ago.
Does this answer your question? I have more info, but better do not write it down in this forum.......I am a tax payer in Aussieland and I may get into trouble when I start criticising.....oh oh oh and oh
 
#10 · (Edited)
What a story.
I knew Bill pretty well (he was called Bill here) and I also remember that his waistline became bigger and bigger.
He was surrounded by his mates "painters and dockers" which at the time had the most powerful union in OZ and the office was always full of empty beer cans. (Pint)
The dockyard no longer exists, in fact Melbourne no longer has any slipping or docking facilities left.
Bill was quite a character, but still very helpful when you needed him.
 
#11 ·
Willie Shorten

George and Jan

Wonder if he is related to "Young" Bill Shorten of the AWU(?) who looks like heading for parliment (If they can find him a safe seat) Had a small difference of opinion with him down at Esso's plant at Longford in Gippsland.

Robbo
 
#13 ·
Alan Whicker, of "Whicker's World" fame, did a hilarious program about Nauru in the '60s. At the time, the island's population were the richest per capita in the world, thanks to phosphate. Sadly, with the money mis-managed and the phosphate gone, they are now at the other end of the spectrum.

I met several ex Nauru shipping employees working on Australian ships, all had tales of woe about getting paid. Even in the good times they could be seen jumping up and down in Nauru House demanding their pay.

One memorable person, who's name I can't recall has to be the most honest man I ever met.

He was an Engineer Superintendent with ANL and held the same position with Nauru Shipping. The island big shots decided they needed a fishing industry so he was dispatched to Peru where a couple of likely trawlers were up for sale.

A couple of million US dollars were lodged in a Peruvian bank in his name and he was to inspect and, if in good shape, purchase the ships. I think I would have found the lure of Acapulco too much, but he resisted the temptation and bought the trawlers.

On several visits to Nauru on phosphate ships, the trawlers were always there, tied up to buoys and they reputedly never caught a fish - the sea around the island being a squillion fathoms, most of the fish hang around just off the beach.
 
#14 ·
Once sailed past it but perhaps fortunately never stopped. Brings back many memories of the Nauruan ships, we used to work them very regularly out at La Perouse, its nice to know that at least one of them may remain still afloat.
Its a shame that Nauru ended up the way it has, I believe that their Prime Minister used to spend more time in Nauru House in Melbourne than back home in Nauru. I think they had their own airline at one stage, only a couple of planes but I would anticipate those have long gone with the financial hardships that occured when the phosphate ran out. Probably sold the the fishing trawlers too!!.
Doug
 
#15 ·
My company was supplying products to Nauru Shipping all the time and each time we had to arrest a vessel in order to get paid through the further intervention of the sheriff which always included a commercial interest percentage from the date of lodgement.
So out of hundreds of accounts this was our very best one as they were charged top dollar prices and after a court order we got the money after we held up one of their ships during a fortnight or so,.
Those ships , instead of 3 days, always moored alongside in Melbourne for 2 weeks or so in order to get the court order cleared after payment was made in full.
Mismanagement I think is a very weak term in this case.
They even phoned me from Nauru House to tell me which vessel was best to be arrested that particular week and kept us up to date upon exact arrival and anticipated departure. We were then requested to lodge the claim asap so that the hold up in port could be restricted.
It was just a question of time before they went under.

Last year Nauru House was sold on account of huge debts to many creditors and yes you are right " The President" was always in Melbourne sitting in luxury on the top floor and sacked staff as he pleased with no reason, yet a healthy redundancy pay out was always taken care of as they knew they had no hope in court otherwise.

Yes they also had an airline of which the maintenance was done by Air New Zealand. By memory they had 3 planes at the time.
Today as far as I know they are still operational between Brisbane and the Polynesian Islands with only one boeing 737 left.

.....There are many chapters in this book........but I better stop. =P
 
#17 ·
It was actually so stupid that we were supplying the ship with products , worth thousands of dollars, whilst at the same time we arrested her through the sheriffs office to get the previous lot paid and then 3 months later when she returned it started all over again with retrieving the previous outstanding.
This was going on for years and the administration of Nauru Shipping was total chaos, except the personnel was quite willing and cooperative but their hands were tight.
Nobody wanted to supply products/fuel/water/chandlery buss. unless they got C.O.D. payments, yet we were the only company which just kept supplying and went through monthly routines of arresting the same vessel or another one of the fleet.
The best account ever simply because the prices were never questioned.

When product A could be obtained against 100 dollars cash or exactly the same against 400 dollars on account, they opted for the latter.

The purchase dept. (poor Harold D.) knew the ship was to be arrested then, but at least he did not need to go through days of trouble to get the cash.

.......so Doug this was chapter two......you want to get the other chapters too??.....the story is even getting better......stop =P
 
#20 ·
One has to be careful what to put to paper, however, this shipping company completely disappeared and I do not think you can expect any action from anybody in case they feel offended.
They should not anyway as I do not make up the stories.

Last story then hereby.
The "Kolle-D", their largest bulk carrier was off to the drydock in Subic Bay back in 1982. That shipyard called "Philseco" was brand new and was built and managed by Kawasaki people from Japan. It could handle 500.000 DWT.
They were teaching the locals how to run such yard.
Mr Marcus , the president of The Philippines at the time, called Mister 15 percent, did of course officially open the yard and got his usual brown paper bag.

The "Kolle-D" was only the 4th vesssel to dock and all yard's equipment was still very new and in excellent condition and with 40 Japanese experts around , then you could not go wrong.
I flew over there to undertake the supervision during a 10 day period.
We sold USD 165.000 worth of products to the ship, two containers full of paint which was all used on this vessel. (abt 16.000 litres I remember).
There was nobody in OZ, i.e. our competitors, who were game enough to put in a bid as they all wanted C.O.D. prior to shipment to the Philippines.
I knew that and simply took them on, charged them full list prices and arrested the "Eigamoya" 3 months later and received the funds by cheque.
The latter even included interest from the date we seized the "Eigamoiya" until they paid through the sheriff's office.
It must have been one of the biggest profits I ever made for the company taking the quantity into consideration.

USD 165,000.- back in 1982 , how does this rate in today's terms ? Remember these were only the costs of the paints, add another couple of hundred thousands for surface prep. and application and this only concerned the paint job.......docking a ship is expensive indeed.

This shipyard was taken over by Keppel Singapore and I think they are still running it and no doubt in an excellent way Singapore style.

This is Nostalgia, exciting times.

........last chapter........ =P
 
#22 ·
Very interesting stuff!! I had a relatively short involvement with Nauru Shipping in the Eighties and can certainly confirm that life around the Nauruans was, to say the least, never dull. Jan Hendrik tells a few stories and I could also keep this space occupied for a long time. But that is for later.
I would correct one point that was mentioned. It was not "Enna G" that lay alongside the Floating dock in Melbourne for some time. It was "Eigamoya" and she was ultimately sold for further trading. "Enna G" ended her days laying in the lagoon at Majuro in the Marshall Islands to act as an hotel ship. I took her there from Guam at the end of her last trip from San Francisco.Whether she ever had any paying guests I don't know nor do I know how long she lay there before going to the breakers. "Eigigu" was built in East Germany and was purchased from Booker Line for trade around Micronesia. She was a sister ship to BHP Shipping's "Iron Baron" of the late 1970's but without the Stulken heavy lifting gear.

John
 
#24 ·
Doug Rogers said:
Thanks for the update on the Nauruan ships, wonder what ultimately happened to the Iron Baron...cant recall seeing her name around for a long time.
Doug
Thanks for bringing Iron Baron up John and Doug.

I sailed on the Baron, or "Hitler's Revenge" as she was known round the BHP traps, in about 1981. She was engaged in carrying steel products from NSW to New Zealand and Kwinana, West Australia. Pig iron was backloaded from Kwinana for Geelong. This was in the balmy days before the NZ port reforms!Happy days. I seem to recall she was sold in about '83 as a going concern to an overseas company.

BHP obtained another Iron Baron in the late '80s which became famous for going aground on a reef at the entrance to the Tamar River, Tasmania, in 1995. She was towed out and scuttled in Bass Strait a few days later.

Regards, John T.
 
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