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The "Regent Pembroke" was built at Vickers 'Walker Naval Yard' on the Tyne in 1964 and handed over to the owners, Regent Petroleum Tankship Co. Ltd., London (a Texaco subsidiary) in January 1965, following sea trials in December 1964 and January 1965.
There were problems on the sea trials. On the first trials in December the weather was not of the best. When it came to the point of checking speed and fuel consumption at loaded draft, it was snowing and blowing quite hard off the Newbiggin measured mile. The ship was to be ballasted down to her loaded marks. This was done by opening gate valves between the tanks, and then opening the seacocks to flood the appropriate tanks.
All went well until the fuel feed was changed over. The feed tank selected had been filled with water. The boilers were unable to cope with this and power was lost. The main generators (all steam driven) gave up the ghost and came off the board. Unfortunately the hydraulic pumps for the cargo handling system, including the gate valves and seacocks, were all electrically powered and there was no manual back up. The emergency generator and switchboard could not supply the cargo pumps and gate valve systems. We were filling with seawater, going down by the head and developing a severe list. It was dark, snowing and there were over 180 people aboard with only one 60-man lifeboat on each side of the ship. It was amazing how many people found jobs that needed doing (by torchlight) out on the boat deck, checking boats, fittings, wiring and even measuring paint thickness.
Eventually the problem was identified and things were brought back under control. However further problems with the rudder meant that we had to be towed back into the Tyne. Because of these problems and since she had not achieved the contracted design speed, new trials were arranged for the New Year and we got to go home for Christmas. Things went better on the second trials in the New Year, although she never made the design speed, and the vessel was handed over early in January and she sailed for the Gulf.
Although not particularly big by the VLCC standards of the day (Length 790’ 03”, Beam 106’ 05”, Draught 56’ 06”, Tonnage 36,778.83 gross, 23,526.92 net, 63,003 dwt), the "Regent Pembroke" was something of a landmark vessel but one which was out of its time. A single-screw, steam turbine vessel, she had a number of advanced features, including some adopted from shore-based power station practice, that were intended to save construction and operating costs. However the concentration of so many novel, untried, features in a single vessel was perhaps too ambitious.
Amongst these features was bridge control of the engines - reputedly a first for such a large steam turbine vessel. Swinging the telegraph on the Bridge from 'Stop' to 100% Ahead caused increasing numbers of fires to be lit in the boilers and operated the valves controlling the turbines. Similarly, reducing the speed caused fires to be extinguished as appropriate to the position selected. The automation electronics controlling the engines and boilers resided in a console in the hot and humid engine room, not in a special air-conditioned room as became later practice. Semiconductor technology of the early 1960s was just not up to the environmental conditions present in the console. Once we got into warmer weather in the Eastern Med. on the maiden voyage in ballast to Ras Tanura via the Suez Canal it was interesting to discover that when the system failed, it usually put the engines into full astern! Being "put on the shake" was never meant to describe what happened when this occurred on the 4 to 8. Being slammed full astern from 15 knots in the middle of the night was guaranteed to shake you out of your bunk double-quick. We went through the Canal with more than fingers crossed, praying that the system would not go astern and jam us across the waterway.
A second area that proved a little too much for the technology of the day was the use of solid state (SCR) exciters on the generators. These had been recently introduced in power station generating sets but were less than happy in the conditions in a ship's engine room and collapsed when subjected to the sort of load surges that large cargo pumps can produce. Failures were common and the engineers soon ran short of spare parts, rarely being able to put more than 2 of the 3 generators on the board.
Another innovation was the fitting of a skegless rudder, saving the cost and drag of a lower pintle bearing at the bottom of the rudder. It may have looked good on the drawings (although there was little other resemblance to a racing yacht) but in the metal it was a near disaster. Unfortunately the proximity of the rudder, suspended only from its upper end, to a single propeller driven by 21,500 shp turbines, was rather more than the structure could withstand. The whole rudder was swung from side to side by the forces acting on it. This acted like a 'tommy bar' through the stern of the ship, twisting the hull to and fro. The vibration, especially in the after accommodation block had to be seen to be believed. Doors could not be locked - the bulkheads were moving so much that the doorframes did not stay square but twisted through a lozenge shape and back to square. The entire deckhead of the engineers' changing room fell down in one piece. It fell as far as the top of the large table that filled the centre of the room, and sat there. Unfortunately the doors to the room opened inwards, but only until they met the edge of what had been a suspended ceiling, now 2' 6" or so above the deck. Eventually the ship went into Naples to have over 160 tons of additional steelwork fitted to strengthen the stern and stiffen it against the motion of the rudder. Even then the vibration was worse than on any other ship I sailed on.
An early victim was the 12-foot radar scanner, which suffered vibration-induced fatigue failure of the fixing bolts. Passing through the Bab el Mandab the 2nd Mate reported a noise from the scanner and just as I arrived on the Bridge to check it out, the entire 12-foot slotted waveguide antenna sailed off, over the bridge wing into the Red Sea. All the bolts had sheared and a replacement scanner unit had to be flown out to Rio de Janeiro to meet the ship there.
The rudder design was blamed (by those on board) for the problems of steering her a low speed. Below about 4 knots she just ignored the helm. In a 36,000 grt ship, 4 knots involves a hell of a lot of momentum. On our first fully loaded visit to Pointe a Pierre in Trinidad we managed to virtually demolish the jetty, carrying straight on whilst the rudder was hard over. Tugs were a must everywhere. Going through the Suez canal in ballast was an absolute nightmare for the bridge crowd. Would she steer? Would she go full astern at the wrong time?
When it came to cargo handling, this again had been automated, with all valves remotely controlled from a single cargo-handling room in the mid-ships accommodation block, above the pumproom and centrecastle. Operating the switches there opened and closed the various cargo valves; indicators on a Mimic diagram located above the controls showed the operating status of each valve.
Unusually for such a large vessel there were only 5 cargo tanks (each divided into 3, one Centre and two wing tanks). Only 3 of these tanks were provided with pipelines i.e. tanks 1, 3 (or 4) and 5, and then only in the centre tanks. In the bulkheads separating the tanks, fore and aft and thwartships, were gate valves that could be operated remotely, to allow the cargo to flow from one tank to another. Discharging involved opening the valves between wing tanks and centre tanks, pumping initially from the suction in No.1 centre, to trim the vessel by the stern, and then pumping from all three suctions. As the level fell, the gate valves between Nos. 1 and 2, 2 and 3, and so on were opened to allow oil to flow towards No. 5 tank. As No. 1 tank became empty, the gate valves there would be closed and the suction turned off. This was repeated as the other tanks emptied, until only No.5 tank had any cargo remaining. Eventually there would be too little depth in the tank to allow the main cargo pumps to continue; they would be turned off and the final small amount of oil remaining would be removed with the stripping pumps.
The idea was that only one tank would need stripping, allowing the cargo pumps to continue discharging at full capacity (about 6,000 tons/hour) until almost all the cargo had been discharged. As a result she was regularly able to discharge 63,000 tons or so in 15 hours. Nothing special today but pretty good for 40 years ago.
The many problems meant that for the first 6 months of its life, the vessel was pursued around the world by various experts on specific bits of kit. They would come out to meet us in the Gulf or in Trinidad and replace parts, reconfigure or adjust the necessary items and leave as fast as they could. On poor guy flew into Damman at midnight, was driven across the desert in a car driven by a large black man who spoke no English and was delivered to the ship (much to his relief) at Ras Tanura around 4 a.m. He was told to get his head down until breakfast, but when he awoke we were part way down the Gulf bound round the Cape for Trinidad. He was somewhat upset since he was moving house later that week, but got to work and fixed things in a day or so, with the promise that he would be landed at the first possible port. What no one told him was that at fully loaded draught, we could not get into any of the ports that we would pass en route to the discharge port. Twenty-eight days later we landed him at Pointe-a-Pierre in Trinidad.
Once the various troubleshooters had left us, we were a small but happy team. Old Man and 3 mates, Chief and 3 engineers and me (the Sparks). Only 9 Europeans plus 65 Indian crewmembers. You couldn't afford to fall out with anyone or else there would be no one to talk to. Having stood by the vessel prior to the sea trials, I sailed with her until April of 1966. At first it was hard work for everyone, but once things eventually settled down, she was a very happy ship. This was in spite of the run - 28 days each way from Trinidad around the Cape to the Gulf and 28 days back. No shore leave in the Gulf and only 15 - 20 hours in port at the discharge end. Substituting Brazil (Rio or Santos) for Trinidad, or going into the Eastern Med. to Sidon or Ras Lanuf instead of to the Gulf occasionally varied things but it made little difference. The money was good - there was no opportunity to spend anything - but the lifestyle was less than exciting. My time on her convinced me that I should swallow the anchor and get a job ashore.
Although we found her a happy ship, she could not have been very successful. In 1968 she was transferred to Texaco Petroleum and renamed “Texaco Pembroke”, still under the Red Ensign. In 1971 management passed to Texaco Norway A/S and she changed to Norwegian registry. Finally in March 1978, only 12 years after she left the builder's yard, she was sold & delivered to Taiwan shipbreakers Shyeh Shen Huat Steel, Kaohsiung.
Ron Stringer
There were problems on the sea trials. On the first trials in December the weather was not of the best. When it came to the point of checking speed and fuel consumption at loaded draft, it was snowing and blowing quite hard off the Newbiggin measured mile. The ship was to be ballasted down to her loaded marks. This was done by opening gate valves between the tanks, and then opening the seacocks to flood the appropriate tanks.
All went well until the fuel feed was changed over. The feed tank selected had been filled with water. The boilers were unable to cope with this and power was lost. The main generators (all steam driven) gave up the ghost and came off the board. Unfortunately the hydraulic pumps for the cargo handling system, including the gate valves and seacocks, were all electrically powered and there was no manual back up. The emergency generator and switchboard could not supply the cargo pumps and gate valve systems. We were filling with seawater, going down by the head and developing a severe list. It was dark, snowing and there were over 180 people aboard with only one 60-man lifeboat on each side of the ship. It was amazing how many people found jobs that needed doing (by torchlight) out on the boat deck, checking boats, fittings, wiring and even measuring paint thickness.
Eventually the problem was identified and things were brought back under control. However further problems with the rudder meant that we had to be towed back into the Tyne. Because of these problems and since she had not achieved the contracted design speed, new trials were arranged for the New Year and we got to go home for Christmas. Things went better on the second trials in the New Year, although she never made the design speed, and the vessel was handed over early in January and she sailed for the Gulf.
Although not particularly big by the VLCC standards of the day (Length 790’ 03”, Beam 106’ 05”, Draught 56’ 06”, Tonnage 36,778.83 gross, 23,526.92 net, 63,003 dwt), the "Regent Pembroke" was something of a landmark vessel but one which was out of its time. A single-screw, steam turbine vessel, she had a number of advanced features, including some adopted from shore-based power station practice, that were intended to save construction and operating costs. However the concentration of so many novel, untried, features in a single vessel was perhaps too ambitious.
Amongst these features was bridge control of the engines - reputedly a first for such a large steam turbine vessel. Swinging the telegraph on the Bridge from 'Stop' to 100% Ahead caused increasing numbers of fires to be lit in the boilers and operated the valves controlling the turbines. Similarly, reducing the speed caused fires to be extinguished as appropriate to the position selected. The automation electronics controlling the engines and boilers resided in a console in the hot and humid engine room, not in a special air-conditioned room as became later practice. Semiconductor technology of the early 1960s was just not up to the environmental conditions present in the console. Once we got into warmer weather in the Eastern Med. on the maiden voyage in ballast to Ras Tanura via the Suez Canal it was interesting to discover that when the system failed, it usually put the engines into full astern! Being "put on the shake" was never meant to describe what happened when this occurred on the 4 to 8. Being slammed full astern from 15 knots in the middle of the night was guaranteed to shake you out of your bunk double-quick. We went through the Canal with more than fingers crossed, praying that the system would not go astern and jam us across the waterway.
A second area that proved a little too much for the technology of the day was the use of solid state (SCR) exciters on the generators. These had been recently introduced in power station generating sets but were less than happy in the conditions in a ship's engine room and collapsed when subjected to the sort of load surges that large cargo pumps can produce. Failures were common and the engineers soon ran short of spare parts, rarely being able to put more than 2 of the 3 generators on the board.
Another innovation was the fitting of a skegless rudder, saving the cost and drag of a lower pintle bearing at the bottom of the rudder. It may have looked good on the drawings (although there was little other resemblance to a racing yacht) but in the metal it was a near disaster. Unfortunately the proximity of the rudder, suspended only from its upper end, to a single propeller driven by 21,500 shp turbines, was rather more than the structure could withstand. The whole rudder was swung from side to side by the forces acting on it. This acted like a 'tommy bar' through the stern of the ship, twisting the hull to and fro. The vibration, especially in the after accommodation block had to be seen to be believed. Doors could not be locked - the bulkheads were moving so much that the doorframes did not stay square but twisted through a lozenge shape and back to square. The entire deckhead of the engineers' changing room fell down in one piece. It fell as far as the top of the large table that filled the centre of the room, and sat there. Unfortunately the doors to the room opened inwards, but only until they met the edge of what had been a suspended ceiling, now 2' 6" or so above the deck. Eventually the ship went into Naples to have over 160 tons of additional steelwork fitted to strengthen the stern and stiffen it against the motion of the rudder. Even then the vibration was worse than on any other ship I sailed on.
An early victim was the 12-foot radar scanner, which suffered vibration-induced fatigue failure of the fixing bolts. Passing through the Bab el Mandab the 2nd Mate reported a noise from the scanner and just as I arrived on the Bridge to check it out, the entire 12-foot slotted waveguide antenna sailed off, over the bridge wing into the Red Sea. All the bolts had sheared and a replacement scanner unit had to be flown out to Rio de Janeiro to meet the ship there.
The rudder design was blamed (by those on board) for the problems of steering her a low speed. Below about 4 knots she just ignored the helm. In a 36,000 grt ship, 4 knots involves a hell of a lot of momentum. On our first fully loaded visit to Pointe a Pierre in Trinidad we managed to virtually demolish the jetty, carrying straight on whilst the rudder was hard over. Tugs were a must everywhere. Going through the Suez canal in ballast was an absolute nightmare for the bridge crowd. Would she steer? Would she go full astern at the wrong time?
When it came to cargo handling, this again had been automated, with all valves remotely controlled from a single cargo-handling room in the mid-ships accommodation block, above the pumproom and centrecastle. Operating the switches there opened and closed the various cargo valves; indicators on a Mimic diagram located above the controls showed the operating status of each valve.
Unusually for such a large vessel there were only 5 cargo tanks (each divided into 3, one Centre and two wing tanks). Only 3 of these tanks were provided with pipelines i.e. tanks 1, 3 (or 4) and 5, and then only in the centre tanks. In the bulkheads separating the tanks, fore and aft and thwartships, were gate valves that could be operated remotely, to allow the cargo to flow from one tank to another. Discharging involved opening the valves between wing tanks and centre tanks, pumping initially from the suction in No.1 centre, to trim the vessel by the stern, and then pumping from all three suctions. As the level fell, the gate valves between Nos. 1 and 2, 2 and 3, and so on were opened to allow oil to flow towards No. 5 tank. As No. 1 tank became empty, the gate valves there would be closed and the suction turned off. This was repeated as the other tanks emptied, until only No.5 tank had any cargo remaining. Eventually there would be too little depth in the tank to allow the main cargo pumps to continue; they would be turned off and the final small amount of oil remaining would be removed with the stripping pumps.
The idea was that only one tank would need stripping, allowing the cargo pumps to continue discharging at full capacity (about 6,000 tons/hour) until almost all the cargo had been discharged. As a result she was regularly able to discharge 63,000 tons or so in 15 hours. Nothing special today but pretty good for 40 years ago.
The many problems meant that for the first 6 months of its life, the vessel was pursued around the world by various experts on specific bits of kit. They would come out to meet us in the Gulf or in Trinidad and replace parts, reconfigure or adjust the necessary items and leave as fast as they could. On poor guy flew into Damman at midnight, was driven across the desert in a car driven by a large black man who spoke no English and was delivered to the ship (much to his relief) at Ras Tanura around 4 a.m. He was told to get his head down until breakfast, but when he awoke we were part way down the Gulf bound round the Cape for Trinidad. He was somewhat upset since he was moving house later that week, but got to work and fixed things in a day or so, with the promise that he would be landed at the first possible port. What no one told him was that at fully loaded draught, we could not get into any of the ports that we would pass en route to the discharge port. Twenty-eight days later we landed him at Pointe-a-Pierre in Trinidad.
Once the various troubleshooters had left us, we were a small but happy team. Old Man and 3 mates, Chief and 3 engineers and me (the Sparks). Only 9 Europeans plus 65 Indian crewmembers. You couldn't afford to fall out with anyone or else there would be no one to talk to. Having stood by the vessel prior to the sea trials, I sailed with her until April of 1966. At first it was hard work for everyone, but once things eventually settled down, she was a very happy ship. This was in spite of the run - 28 days each way from Trinidad around the Cape to the Gulf and 28 days back. No shore leave in the Gulf and only 15 - 20 hours in port at the discharge end. Substituting Brazil (Rio or Santos) for Trinidad, or going into the Eastern Med. to Sidon or Ras Lanuf instead of to the Gulf occasionally varied things but it made little difference. The money was good - there was no opportunity to spend anything - but the lifestyle was less than exciting. My time on her convinced me that I should swallow the anchor and get a job ashore.
Although we found her a happy ship, she could not have been very successful. In 1968 she was transferred to Texaco Petroleum and renamed “Texaco Pembroke”, still under the Red Ensign. In 1971 management passed to Texaco Norway A/S and she changed to Norwegian registry. Finally in March 1978, only 12 years after she left the builder's yard, she was sold & delivered to Taiwan shipbreakers Shyeh Shen Huat Steel, Kaohsiung.
Ron Stringer
