David marquess of milfordhaven
 

Before I applied to join the Post Office - Portisheadradio - in 1970 I had been in negotiation with Helmville shipping company to be the RO on their new build - David Marquess of Milford Haven. She was at that time being built in Bilbao Spain. I came across the last letter I had from them regarding this employment. The salary offered was good for the era at £175 per month and a lot more that NZ shipping were paying as per the list of 1968 which I have attached as well.
I had learnt about the company and the job from a friend, John Wilson who was one of the Directors of the company. He and his family ran a hotel near me which I frequented.
As it turned out - fortunately as it happens - the offer of the job from the GPO came up first and I decided to stay ashore. I did communicate with the vessel a few times at GKA - the name was one of the longest I think. The company I learnt later were not too hot at paying the wages and there had been previous happenings with a ship in the Red Sea - I think it was the Medina Princess. The following is taken from http://www.merchant-navy.net/forum/m...-steering.html
You will see from this as to why I was very lucky not to have taken up the post. As an aside my friend did not have day to day running of the company but was a name.
I off course had met Capt Osborne and Mr Alachouzos.

Quote from the web site:

There has been quite a lot on the web,and in all these nautical sites about the company that owned this ship,the notorious/infamous Helmville Shipping,,one of those (mainly) foreigner owned and run outfits which ran ships under the U.K. flag from late 50’s through the 80’s,the otherwise ‘golden era’ of our British Shipping.It was certainly the time when the British MN was sliding into decline rapidly.
Almost a flag of convenience,and certainly one to avoid unless you were desperate for a ship.
　
The 7,069 grt cargo vessel s.s. MEDINA PRINCESS was built 1944 for MOWT as EMPIRE TUDOR - later
48 GRANDYKE - 49 BENVANNOCH -and was bought by Helmville Shipping Co. in 1956.

An early incident came to light when it was reported in 1961
- In tow of tug Englishman, Bd Falmouth- Short of Fuel.
　
　
　
Then- the from logs of "HMS LOCH LOMOND, AUGUST 1962 –
Re British ship – MEDINA PRINCESS

3/8/62 The British flagged tramp ship requested assistance from HMS LOCH LOMOND which was paying a visit to Djibouti in French Somaliland. Amazingly, MEDINA PRINCESS was lying alongside the wharf but the Master signed a Lloyds Open Form !… The vessel had reportedly grounded whilst arriving at Djibouti,and her engine room was flooded.Salvage work was taken in hand immediately by technical staff from the British frigate. All efforts to remove water from the flooded engine room proved in vain. It was suspected that as fast as one sea valve was shut by the salvage team in an attempt to prevent ingress of water, other valves were being opened by persons unknown to ensure that the ship would not be able to sail. The absence of any ship drawings made all salvage attempts a lengthy and hit and miss affair.
LOCH LOMOND had to sail three days later and salvage work was then abandoned with no success. The Medina Princess was towed out of port two years later by the authorities and beached on a shoal off Djibouti in 9/64,and apparently could still be seen there into the 70’s.
MEDINA PRINCESS had a history of disaster since sailing from Europe with a cargo of wheat consigned to China. There had been innumerable problems including a mutiny whilst on passage through the Mediterranean.
The affair culminated in a legal action in the High Court in London. Salvage awards were not paid."

… about the insurance case... It appears Helmville was trying to get about £350,0000 for a ship worth £65,000,and the case was notable for the length of time it was in the courts.

　
The MNAOA(Officers Union )were warning members about conditions in this company in the 70’s. Problems on the company’s later British-flagged vessels ( m.v.Jocelyne; m.v.Faith Euskalduna ;and m.v. David,Marquess of Milford Haven) included non-payment of wages,and the vessels were regularly detained for non-payment of dues,fraud and negligence.
I heard the company was run from a little office near Fenchurch Street Station in London,and the MD was M.Alachouzos,with Capt.L.A.Osbourne described as marine superintendent-later a "consultant" -between 1976 -8.Yes,the same Capt.Osborne who was master of the Medina Princess in 1962.

Helmville went into liquidation in 1981.

Funny; all those dire warnings about the dangers of leaving the British Flag and going freelance:


You will not get paid;
You will be left in a foreign port and have to find your own way home;
The ship will be deliberately sunk for the insurance;
etc etc.


Ha Ha!

I thought long and hard about sailing Foreign Flag because of the above and the 'attitude' amongst some in the British M.N. that once you had crossed over your career was doomed, however it it turned out to be one of the better decisions I have made in life.

I free lanced in 1974 and specified British ships only to the REOU (I think their freelance office was in Hull.) So I got a job to join the Naess Endeavour in Curacao. Off I went and the taxi driver dropped me off at the ship, which had now become the Burmah Cameo under the Liberian Flag.

Same ship, same management (Denholm if I remember right.) Well I joined anyway and did an 8 monther. In Capetown some engineers joined and they were still being told it was the Naess Endeavour under British flag. One refused to join and they had to fly him back. After that they started telling the truth.

All in all it wasn't a bad trip but I had to get the Union to chase up ITT (who I was freelanced to) in order to get them to pay my final monies. So it could be a dodgy business going freelance.

At their peak I wonder how many ships Denholms managed, any idea?

I can remember the quote and recruiting campaign (featuring with Rodney Megran) claimed 1% of total world tonnage.

A Summer/Autumn 1981 Denholm News (in my first year ashore which features ME! - see below) has 64 vessels.

In today's world I doubt the article about your good self would be allowed to be printed, some 'ist' would complain.

Started freelancing in 1973 via REOU in Hull, Silver Marine in Liverpool, and then direct employ with Mosvold of Kristiansands, Sanko, and then cruise lines. Always got paid (even with one ship and scrap run jobs), never stranded abroad. However, I always had enough cash in my pocket to walk off a ship if I didn't like it on going up the gangway.

I had no experience of foreign flag, but remember one particular event on nights at GKZ. I don't remember the ship, but the RO was UK and he came up on vhf through Bacton/2BA - on the north Norfolk coast. It was his own private hand held set and he was on deck where he hoped he would be unheard. He asked me to enter in my log his concerns as to what the near future of the vessel might be, and asked me to use it if any mishap came to the ship.................... It didn't !

David
+

I do remember that after we had sailed I was told I needed a Liberian Ticket and it would cost 20 dollars. The Chief Steward stared at me with anticipation and I stared back.
"Of course Denholms will pay for that," he said.
'F**king right they will,' I thought.

I've still got it, shown below. Had I known it was that easy I might not have bothered with PMG and MRGC and all that jazz ..... (only joking.) :jester:

David,

For the life of me, I can't remember where I read it but, I recall a figure of 88 being mentioned in the mid 70s. :supercool:

Bob,

I still have my Liberian ticket as well. They did have to view or have a copy of your PMG before they issued it.

Neville

That must have been done aboard ship as my ticket was kept by the Old Man. The Liberian ticket came to me in the post and I noticed it only lasted five years.

So I'll never be able to sail on a Liberian Ship again !!

I'm heartbroken. :huh:

I have also got a Liberian Ticket in a drawer somewhere. Marconi paid for it, IIRC apart from a photo copy of my PMG I had to make a declaration in front of a Notary. I believe Marconi sent off the application to the Liberian Shipping Authorities at their Embassy in New York and I received the ticket some weeks after I had signed on the ship.

One of the Liberian regulations decreed that the licences had to be displayed aboard ship in a place readily visible to anyone. Most ships had a glass-fronted display frame for the purpose.

I remember one Greek first trip apprentice coming aboard, seeing all of the photographs and being unable to read English said, 'So many wanted men?'

Liberian Licence (Plus one renewal after the 5 years), and eventually a Panamanian which arrived from their NY office around 1996 something like 5 years after I applied for it. Apparently, their system works a little better now.

Don't I remember that it had to be a copy displayed and not the original? (Liberian).

Photocopier? On a ship? - Whatever next?

There times when I would have liked a photocopier.

When I sailed on the Mobil Pegasus (whoring for GTZM for a trip because I was stony broke after financing my way through MED/MRGC at Southampton in 1975) I was paid a monthly amount (beer money) to do some of the Old Man's paperwork. Things like customs and crew lists and other odds and ends. I could touch type so that wasn't much bother, but in order to produce copies they had one of those crankywanky Banda machines that involved a weird stencil and a thermonuclear explosion of ink.

I'd come out of the ships office looking like a miner who's just spent 10 hours in a narrow coal seam. The Old Man thought it was hilarious. :smoking::shock::sweat:

Snap on that Bob. In 1962 on BI Educational Cruise ship Devonia we had to type the press on to a Gestetner Stencil forms which was collected by the Pursers dept each morning. The big problem being, at that time I could not touch type, so had to take it in handwriting and then type it two finger style on to the stencil - uuggghh.

We certainly had a 'duplicator' on Tilapa can't remember if it was Gestetner. Used by Leckie and Bill Fridge to publish the ship's 'rag' Tilapa Times. I still have a copy or few.

I'll say one thing, if you used one of those things, you got a free tattoo. Not so much a dagger through the heart, or a spider or 'I love Mabel,' or whatever ... more like a Rorschach Test. :jester:

#6

I think this was used in a MN recruiting poster in mid-eighties. Recruiting for cooks.

What can you make from a bullock, a bag of flour and a keg of Watneys.

Stay me with flagons by all means but not Red Barrel, never Red Barrel.

All nations have a dark secret for which they must forever hang their heads in shame.

Ours was Watney's Red Barrel. :jester: