Pacific Princess - 1965

Re: Pacific Princess - 1965

Postby Duncan P » Tue Aug 22, 2017 7:28 am

Further Mine a couple of months ago, on the Pacific princess, 1 or 2 "events" come to mind on the maiden voyage.
The first was sailing from Blythe for trials, with the shipyard mates all over the place.
As 2/0 I was of course aft, and when the pilot had her lined up he went ahead somewhat early, so much so that the aft tug "Appleyard" I think, was damn near pulled over onto her beam ends, causing much consternation both to the tug crew and myself, as the Chinese seamen more or less fled the poop leaving me to try and let go the tugs towing wire, which was bar taut, and which the crew had handily lashed the top 2 turns together. When it did start to move the smoke from the newly painted, tarred bits and the oil in the tugs wires was quite spectacular.

The 1st voyage was from Newcastle to Vitoria Brazil, North about Scotland , little Minch and West of Ireland.
I mentioned previously that she was a bit light in ballast, and west of Ireland we were caught in a force 10 gale for too long,
resulting in No3 hatch coaming starboard side cracking under the Macgregors and half way down to the deck.

The 3rd wasn't nearly so worrying, as per usual there was still quite a bit of the dockyard painting to complete, and so all the dockyard paint was left onboard for the crew to complete, naturally it was all upper works and cranes.
Well during the force 10 gale the weight was too much for the paint locker shelves which collapsed under the weight.
Most of the tins split or lost their lids and so we had a "lake" of PURPLE paint on the paint locker up to the edge of the storm step. Well the paint had to go on and so we arrived in Vitoria a nice brand new ship with the cranes and various other bits in this pretty awful purple. When the Brazilian pilot remarked on the strange colour, the old man replied that was called " Autumn Tintus" which pretty well shut down any more remarks.
We also discovered that there was an open valve/ pipeline from the paint locker directly into the top port side of No 1 hold, which had let quite bit of the paint flow down the inside of the hull, and was a bit of a surprise.
The paint turned out to be useless, in as much as the resulting mix wouldn't adhere to the undercoat and just kept pealing off.

But still have fond memories of the 18 months I did on her.
Stay safe and dry
Duncan P
 

Re: Pacific Princess - 1965

Postby creemaster » Sun Jul 28, 2019 8:51 am

Comparing shots of her just after launching and in Vancouver it seems the dodger? And railings above the bridge and top of the funnel were fitted after launch. Wonder why that was
Thanks both she and sister Pacific Princess. Hilt for single ship companies c/o Mollers in London who were the yard’s owners.
Years ago I had a letter from a guy in Holland who was researching Moller’s shipping companies and they had an awful lot!
Will try and find the list if I still have it
Regards
Graham
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Re: Pacific Princess - 1965

Postby teesships » Sun Jul 28, 2019 10:52 am

My apologies, I somehow missed these posts of her in her original guise.

As ARTADI see also: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=26667

Ron
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