For Byron Really ?

[oldgit]

Many years ago (1950s) my dad had a book of which he was especially fond and which as a nippper I had read more than couple of times.Recently asked as to its whereabouts and was told it had been lent to somebody years ago who did oil paintings from marine photographs and it then disappeared.
As Dads birthday was coming up (80) decided to try and track down a copy of the book and then promptly forgot all about it.Dads birthday came and went and feeling a bit guilty finally got on to Google.
Finally managed to track down two copies of the book.....one in the states and one in France.
I now have a copy of "Turmoil" by Brooks Ewart on its way from a book store in Dieppe.

A little bit of maritime history.http://www.teesships.freeuk.com/1129flying2.htm

 

[boatone]

Thanks for that link Fred - it led me to an image bank of all the BP Tankers including those I sailed on between 1959 and 1969.
This one in particular takes me back - The British Crown -28,000 tons DW.
In April 1959 a very apprehensive young B1 stepped on board right on your doorstep at the Isle of Grain refinery and , as a navigating apprentice, she became my home for the next 6 months or so for a return trip or two round the cape to the gulf and back.
Late that year took her into Falmouth for drydock and was part of the skeleton crew that had to cope when a hurricane hit and blew us off the tank cleaning jetty parting all the moorings, both ropes and wires. I vividly remember being told to get up the sharp end and let the anchor go - made the next days national newspapers!
I was transferred to a different ship after that but on 20 August 1966 she blew up at Umm Said in the gulf killing 19 of the people on board. The irony for me was that I was then on the nearest BP ship ordered to recover cargo from the hulk after it was made safe - need to get my logs out to remember which one.

1952 to 1966 - BRITISH CROWN - Tanker - 18570GRT/28598DWT - 196.0 x 24.8 - 1952 Cammell Laird, Birkenhead, No.1208 - 20/08/66 fire and explosion Umm Said, Qatar, beached next day, CTL.

 

[byron]

Strange! British Crown rings hard in my memory and I can't for the life of me think why. I never worked for BP so I can't have tripped on her. All I can think of is that maybe she was ahead or behind me on a Suez run.

 

[byron]

Flying Enterprise is still vivid in my memory but my visions are clouded by the photographs taken and shown. To my best recollection we actually were never closer that probably 5 or 6 miles so she must only have been an 'object' half way to the horizon. There were so many ships there at the time only those with direct involvement would have been close to.

 

[oldgit]

Going back even further courtesy of "Google".A relative of mine was known to have died in the Yukon at the beginning of the 1900s which seems to be a long way from his birth place in Erith.Turns out he left his wife and kids and legged it to Canada.A web based ships manifest puts him on the SS Mongolian and hey presto this turns up online via a web search
.

She was a regular immigrant ? ship and crossed the Atlantic a dozen times per year for over a decade, sunk later on by a Uboat with the loss of many of the crew.