Australia Star

by Captain Sandy Kinghorn

When Australia Star went to Faslane in Scotland for breaking up in 1964 after almost thirty years of sterling service, her name replacement was launched the following year by Austin Pickersgill Ltd., at Southwick, Sunderland. Blue Star were not into heavy lifting until 1962 when a sudden need arose for a ship able to lift undivided pieces of machinery heavier than the lifting capabilities of shore cranes at either end of the service. A Clan Liner had to be chartered and not only got the heavy lift but all the other cargo which went with it, right down to the nuts, bolts and fuse wire. As such lifts were at that time increasingly being built in Britain for export, Blue Star realised that this was too good an opportunity to miss, so they converted the 1942 built South Africa Star, an ex ‘Woolworth’ aircraft carrier built with many others in the US to protect North Atlantic convoys at a time when allied air protection did not quite cover their vital routes.

One of the company’s very few nonreefer ships, she was fitted with a 180 ton Safe Working Load derrick by Howaldtswerke at Hamburg in 1962. This had what was then the biggest unstayed mast afloat, built of special steel. I stood by this conversion as mate and sailed in her over the next two years, four voyages, carrying highly profitable heavy lifts and other cargo which made very interesting work. When the Australian wharfies saw how difficult working this derrick was they were quite happy to let us, the ship’s crew, work it, provided we were paid wharfies’ wages for the job! How could we refuse? That derrick had numerous guys as well as topping lift and purchase to attend. A total of twelve men were required at anyone time to ensure all the wire rope guys worked as required, using the old ship’s existing electric winches. The trickiest bit was landing the heavy cargo item from the heeling ship onto the low loader on the quay because as soon as the load landed the ship rapidly came upright, requiring all wires to be slackened off at once. Naturally we made it look particularly difficult, but with plenty of practice the whole procedure went with a swing every time. With the mate (me) in charge of the operation, the bosun and sailors worked cheerfully with a will, always ready to point out if any wire rope guy was not leading in exactly the right direction.

The derrick was always unrigged for the long run home to the UK, the huge head blocks protected from the weather by a canvas cover made and stitched by the cadets, then rigged again ready for use at the first needed port. On each occasion the stevedore would bet us several cases of beer that we would never get it rigged in time for the morning gang to start work, but we always did, allowing the wharfies to do the hooking and unhooking. Much of our work involved carrying heavy equipment for the Hazelwood power station near Melbourne and one voyage we carried a whole new steel-making process from Middlesbrough for Whyalla in the Spencer Gulf. On my last voyage in her, in 1964/5, we were offered a load of unpacked motor cars in Brisbane for New Zealand, the ship booked to carry them having gone out of action due to some accident. As our own cargo was now all unloaded, naturally we leaped at this offer which did not, of course, involve using our heavy derrick. Cartoned meats and fruits, hides, sheepskins, sacks of birdseed unobtainable in Britain until now because of a lack of suitable shipping space, and, in the four newly converted deep tanks (originally designed to carry her aircraft’s fuel), liquid tallow, used at Port Sunlight for making soap.

American Allis Chalmers steam turbines powered by Foster Wheeler boilers gave her a seemingly effortless 16 knots, over 18 when required, though sometimes during boiler cleaning the resultant funnel smoke became dense and black. But as this usually was done at night it did not bother the 12 passengers who had much more wooden promenade decks than usual in a cargo ship. These were scrubbed white by the crew each morning. When the big derrick was fitted in Hamburg it was realised onboard that this impeded the wheelman’s view of the stemjack flagstaff which was essential when steering in harbour waters, or through a canal for instance. At sea steering was usually by gyro auto pilot, but hand steering was always used in close waters, so to set this right both steering wheel and jackstaff were moved six feet to starboard. The ship’s master, Captain Giles Aldridge, showed Howaldtswerke how this was necessary and it was done. Later, in both Suez and Panama Canals, pilots told us that had this move not been made we would only have been allowed to transit by daylight, not during the night.

So successful was our heavy-lift South Africa Star that a purpose built ship was ordered, to be fitted with what was at that time (1965) the biggest ship’s derrick in the world, able to lift and carry something weighing 300 tons. The building contract went to Sunderland’s Austin Pickersgill Ltd. while the big derrick would be built and fitted by the Hamburg Stulcken yard.

The first Australia Star was built in 1935, one of that innovative and handsome class of twin-screw 12 passenger cargo liners built by Belfast’s Harland and Wolff and Birkenhead’s Cammell Laird during the late ‘thirties to establish Blue Star Line in the highly useful (and profitable) trade between Britain and Australia and New Zealand. Her class sisters were the Imperial, New Zealand, Empire, Dunedin, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane Stars which must have provided much needed work for those shipyards towards the end of the Great Depression. They allied colourful lives, especially during WW2 when carrying vital supplies to assist our war effort.

Imperial, Empire, and Melbourne Stars paid the ultimate price of war, lost by enemy action, while Dunedin Star was wrecked on the Skeleton Coast of Southwest Africa in 1942 when sailing under Admiralty orders. New Zealand, Sydney, Brisbane and Australia Stars survived into the 1960s by which time they were being replaced by modern post war construction. Our new ship took the Australia Star’s name.

I suppose I was the natural choice to go as mate of the new ship, and stood by her Sunderland construction. A vessel being built is always fascinating, watching huge plates of rusty steel slowly growing into a sweetlined ship in which one will soon be sailing. The shipyard was handy for home also, only eleven miles south of Cullercoats. I would leave home at 8 am, bus to North Shields ferry – time for a cigarette while that old steam ferry took me over the Tyne – a river then still crowded with ships under construction or repair and colliers continually loading for London. The train took me from South Shields to Sunderland where another bus had me at the shipyard by 9 o’clock. This idyllic lifestyle was too good to last of course. The notorious Doctor Beeching saw to that with his dramatic cuts which deprived Britain of so many of her smaller railways. Passenger trains between South Shields and Sunderland were abolished. Drivers of the replacement buses went on a go-slow in sympathy and travelling time to work now took half the day. My wife solved this problem by suggesting that I use her bike, a beautiful, gleaming blue and white Raleigh semi-sports with drop handlebars she had had since her 18th birthday.

Twenty two miles a day kept me fit . I guessed I was probably the only master mariner on two unpowered wheels in captivity, and made an average speed of 12 knots, wind and tide permitting. The occasional need to mend a puncture became child’s play while traffic hurtled past along the busy road.

Work on the ship became increasingly interesting. My wife and I were privileged to be on the platform for the launch into the Wear which went off beautifully on a day when both high tide and weather were right. Fitting out proceeded, her main Sulzer 8 cylinder 2 S.C.S.A., built in Barrow by Vickers was brought round to the Wear in a coaster, lifted into the ship by the big hammerhead crane at Palmer’s Hill. Original intention was to complete the ship in Sunderland, commission her for the North Sea trip over to Hamburg where the Stulcken derrick would be fitted, then sail off on her maiden voyage. But due to one thing and another she was not quite completed by the time the Germans wanted her, so on 22nd August she commenced her tow across the North Sea by the Dutch tug Schelde, still in the hands of the shipbuilders but with me onboard as Supernumerary. Apparently my master’s certificate helped with the insurance. After a towed passage at 5.7 knots, at the mouth of Hamburg’s mighty River Elbe we made fast two river tugs as our steering was not yet operational, changing tugs and pilots a further three times as we made our way up the river. I was able to assist our Dutch sailors with the heavy work of making fast the tugs’ towing wires, letting them go as required by the pilot. I found I was the ‘first mate’ forward making that tug fast, the ‘second mate’ aft, the ‘A.B.’ rigging the pilot ladder, the ‘cadet’ bringing him up to the bridge to meet the ‘captain’, who just also happened to be me!

We berthed alongside the Saint Pauli Landing Stage across the river from Stulcken shipyard’s Fahr Canal early morning on 24th August, intending to cross over that afternoon. But a gale blew up and the pilot coming aboard for this shift agreed with me that to shift a large, empty, unpowered ship under such conditions would be inviting disaster, so we waited until next morning. Our twin masts lay ready for us on the quay, to be hoisted into place athwartships by floating crane. All the steel surrounding them and the derrick itself were ‘high tensile’, requiring special welding techniques, interesting to watch.

When it came to rigging the derrick with special wire rope, I was greatly impressed with the speed and skill with which the shipyard bosun completed this task. When I complimented him on his work and also on his English he replied, “Of course! I am not a German, I am a Dutchman!”

The derrick was tested to 330 tons, 10% in excess of its safe working load, lifting a barge filled with water, in the quiet Greisenwerderhafen, far from the madding crowd. A complex computer bureau was set up in the ‘tween deck to which many wires from all parts of the masts and derrick led, stress measurements to be read out as the derrick took its load. The Harbour cruiser Burgomeister Monckeburg brought numerous experts to watch the world’s biggest Inarine derrick go through its paces. As well as Blue Star Line many shipping companies sent their marine superintendents. Austin Pickersgill and Stulcken were of course represented, Lloyd’s Register was here, the Hamburg Press, and, not least, Her Majesty’s Inspector of Factories, all of whom were, in my cabin, offered and drank whisky in china cups, as I had not yet obtained glasses. Fortunately the derrick came through its tests with flying colours, lifting and swinging its load from port to starboard and tripping through the big Y, at both hatches Nos. 2 and 3. There was just enough whisky for a final cup before they all left us to it, and after completion details were carried out, our Dutch tug Schelde returned to tow us back to Sunderland, where fitting out resumed.

The weather deteriorated upon our return to the North Dock, an old, long disused coaling dock. This dock is very exposed to the south east, whence blew gales and blizzards for a week. The ship broke adrift. Ancient mooring bollards were pulled out like rotten teeth and she went careering off up the river without the aid of tugs or engines. Two hundred dockyard workers and one terrified fourth mate the only souls onboard. First she hit an oil wharf, fortunately empty, then drifted upriver into the bulker Kirriemoor, a Runciman’s ship fitting out at Thompson’s yard. Finally she was secured at Palmer’s Hill wharf, having stripped plating off her portside accommodation and knocked a few holes in the bottom, requiring drydock work to repair. This all cost the builders a lot of money!

Finally completed on 8th December we, with her maiden voyage crew, signed on under the command of Captain Donald MacFadyen McPhail and proceeded up to the Tyne to load our first cargo, which was to include a 147 ton stator core from Parsons for our old friends the Hazelwood Power Station near Melbourne.

The North Sea was so rough on our departure that our Tyne pilot remained with us until arrival at the next loading port Middlesbrough where we loaded, among other things, three 70 ton Mirrlees diesel engines for Dampier, King Bay, West Australia. Topping up with a full general cargo in London’s Royal Victoria Dock, we finally sailed for Australia via Suez on 31st December 1965. Off Ushant we ran into exceptionally heavy weather which caused our Stulcken Derrick to break loose. I was keeping the 4-8am watch and in the dark:-

“The Stulcken saw I at a glance, Tossing its head in sprightly dance.”

 Which took us several hours in the very rough sea of to re-secure.

I did two voyages as mate of Australia Star, both of four months and as in her South Africa Star predecessor, the Australian wharfies allowed us to work the Derrick, provided we were paid shore wages! Instead of the South Africa’s twelve however, only three men were needed here, the mate in charge armed with a microphone and one man in each cab driving the purchase winch (port mast cab) and the topping lift (starboard). There were no guy-ropes and this poetry of motion was simplicity itself, but scrupulous care was needed to keep all wires tight throughout, to avoid the whole noguys rig collapsing.

Putting our ‘Big Stick’ through its motions was incredibly interesting, perhaps the most taxing being the time alongside Sydney’s Darling Harbour in 1966. Shaw Savill’s Afric was coming along astern of us crossing the Indian Ocean, both of us bound for Melbourne, when one of our Liverpool sailors accidentally got a piece of chipping hammer in his stomach when working aloft freeing a seized shackle. This seemingly trivial injury became worse, much worse, and the Afric kindly took him off us as she had a doctor onboard and we hadn’t. His shipmates took him over to the Afric in our motor lifeboat, noticing that the Shaw Savill liner had on deck a huge cylindrical steel boiler for Sydney. When our man’s condition began to deteriorate Afric ‘s captain took her to Gan in the Maldive Islands where there was at that time a British R.A.F. base with excellent medical facillities. Here our lad’s life was saved by removing the steel sliver from his intestine. Slightly slower than our 20 knots, Afric followed us and, after Melbourne, came into Sydney to find the floating crane was in drydock, out of action and there was no other means of unloading her big boiler.

Could we possibly help? Of course for the Afric we would move mountains, so she came alongside us at Darling Harbour and our jumbo lifted it off and ashore onto a low loader, just like that!

Our ship herself was a beauty with hardly a straight line in her. First Blue Star to have air-conditioned accommodation, first to have a bulbous bow, albeit modest by modern standards, and of course the world’s first with such a huge derrick that we got into the Guinness Book of Records for a while. But she was too fine lined to carry containers profitably, was chartered to the Norwegians as Concordia Gulf in 1972, then in 1974 sold to the Italians who renamed her Cortina C (the C was soon dropped), and ultimately to the Chinese in 1984 to become Candy Ace. Her Blue Star life was a brief six years but in that short time she proved herself to be a vessel superbly fitted for the trade as it was then.