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This vessel was my biggest headache in the days as Ship Scheduling Controller with BISCOre/BSC.
We all knew the Gas Turbine concept could have been a good one, on her it wasn't.....first met her,as an agent on the Tees, and she had problems then, cannot remember who Master was at time but one of the 'old brigade'....possibly Alf Cromarty.
She was,of course, one of the Port Talbot sized fleet so small upriver ports, Ayresome Wharf Middlesbrough,Workington ,Barrow or Dagenham were often used. Fords got to point of refusing her as being so unreliable as to upset their furnace routine...she was reported, I seem to remember, passing Dover Pilots four of five times in one day!
One of the HQ accountants worked out that the best thing to use her for was long voyages(!) so we sent her to Vittoria,which in effect meant we didn't have to worry about her,other than fuelwise, for nearly two months!
geoff
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