[Finkenwerder]

Well well, someone else who experienced the wonderful world of Helmville - I've just discovered this post. I Served on Jocelyne for a short spell; supposed to join as 3rd Mate and ended up being signed on as 2nd Mate since I had a ticket. A shambles of an organisation from start to finish. I'll give you my version of the story of Helmville.

The boss was a Mr Alachouzos who rented a small office close to Fenchurch Street Station in the city. Somehow or other he persuaded the government of the day, who in the early 1970s, were offering low interest loans and grants to build ships and run Red Ensign ships, to fund much of the newbuilds; surprising isn't it?

Anyway for the price of two ships he built three at Bilbao in Spain. One was called "Jocelyne" another "David Marquis of Milford Haven" (some money came from that family - linked to the Mountbatten's allegedly) and "Faith Eskalduna". I Joined in Bilbao on 9th December 1970 and left again in Cristobal on 6th January 1971. The whole setup was an exercise in how not to run a shipping company . Amongst other disasters I had to borrow enough charts from a Spanish tanker to get us to Hamburg from Bilbao! Between Goree and Texel we had no charts at all but we knew the area as well as any mariner might and fortunately we made it - somehow I don't imagine that being countenanced today. Our charts had been sent to Athens by mistake! The British pool crew who walked off in Hamburg and only returned after Alachouzos himself boarded and promised to look into their many grievances. Because the disastrous operation of the ship by Helmville and the resulting mass walk-offs by the NUS guys and many of the engineers in Hamburg, things looked anything but secure so I wrote a letter to Alachouzos with copy to the MNAOA asking to be relieved. In return I managed to get in writing from Alachouzos that he would relieve me in Panama, I copied that to the MNAOA as well. The Hamburg police and the British Consul were all involved with the crew walk-offs.

We finally ended up with a multinational crew and some officers from various sources in Hamburg together with the Spanish shipyard's guarantee Chief Engineer. We finally sailed for Panama but mid Atlantic we had to divert to Punta Delgarda in the Azores as the main sea inlet manifold began to part company with the hull which required us to list the vessel heavily to port to keep the stb'd side clear of the water as much as possible. Once repaired and surveyed we were back to sea.

At Cristobal I was relieved and placed on a train to take me through to Balboa. It was the first time I had transited the canal by train and very interesting it was too. From Balboa I flew to Miami then London. Once back in UK I went to Helmville's office in Lloyd's Avenue where the owner said "I agreed to relieve you but I did not agree to repatriate you so that means that the cost of the air fare will come out of your wages". The air fare and my pay-off were somewhere in the region of £130 each so in effect I would be left with nothing. I refused to negotiate any further and said I would visit the MNAOA for help (they were in Aldgate then). The owner laughed and said they won't help you. I went to the MNAOA who were extremely helpful, told me to go away for an hour then return. When I got back they said I could go back to Helmville and all would be well and it was - I got the pay-off and the air fare paid, so my experience of the MNAOA was probably better than some. I went back to the sanity of Bank Line as quick as possible and never looked back.