Wedgewood doesn’t tack
by Pintal
As I write this on Oyster 53/47 (NZ53/21) Morpheus, in the travel lift dock, I am reminded that we didn’t fly this one, she was lifted off her cargo ship P&O Nedlloyd Remuera onto the dock and then trucked down here to West Palm Beach.
The first flying Oyster was Nz53/03 Francis Flute, she arrived in January 2002 in Savannah aboard the Melbourne Star, as you can see she is some distance up on the ship, we estimated at least 60' to the water. This was our first sight of her, by three o’clock that afternoon we were ready for launching into the river, having hauled up our tool boxes, life jackets, Coast Guard pack, flares, bell, horn, VHF, removed the cover, lashings, put on the lifelines, steering wheel. We assumed that they would lift the boat with a spreader and slings down into the water then we would board.. But the tide was rushing out so that was going to be problematic. So we were told to stay onboard and they would lift us straight outboard and down to the water, 70' up in the air! Down we went, they held us whilst we fired up the engine and checked all the thru holes, then we let go the down stream slings as we backed out into the outgoing flow of the Savannah River. Our objective to motor to Thunderbolt about 12 miles away to the Palmer Johnson yard where the commissioning would be undertaken. We learnt three things that night, we didn’t want to stay the night stuck in the Georgia marshes, bowthrusters are really handy pieces of equipment, and stay in the middle of the channel, but the channel isn’t necessarily in the middle of the river! It was really dark by the time we tied up at 18:30.
Will White the US Customer Care Manager and I have undertaken 10 such offloads, and another four commissionings. Some have been utterly without drama such as the first, 56/15 Ravello was shipped RORO to Baltimore with her own cradle. The mast came separately, so it is moved to Annapolis by a rigging company and then dressed ready to be stepped. They hitched up a tractor to the low loader with the cradle moved it to a crane on the otherside of the docks. Then using a spreader bar and a container crane, picked her up swung her out board and lowered her into the water. By swinging her bow towards the quay wall we boarded her, they then dropped us down into the water, where we checked the bilge for water, then started the engine, then let the slings go. Simple, when it all goes well. Except Will reminded me the warps were stowed under the rigging in the lazarette, so we were using lashing lines as dock lines for the first two days.
New Jersey docks at the Maher Terminal, Elizabeth is similar, one just has to be careful of the mud banks in the river. We off loaded 53/12 Second Wind there in March 2001, motored to Stamford where Scotty Mc Donald dressed and stepped the mast, we left for Newport on St Paddy’s night in a snowstorm with a following wind and no autopilot! There was snow on the decks when we arrived.
Then in August 2002 it was so hot when we launched 49/03 Bobby’s Run, we constantly had to go out of the terminal to the refreshment hut for drinks, past the Pakistani guard who was reading a newspaper in Arabic. Port security was definitely not a priority, in those early post 9/11 days. One recurring problem was the Oyster guys kept on wrapping the prop in protective covering, easy to get to if the boat is on land, but in our case it invariable was 18 feet up and 12 feet away from the area where we could stand, so to disentangling the wrapping with a boat hook and a leather man knife taped to it. 56/88 Grace arrived mast up on a cradle welded to the cargo hatch of a standard freighter, this was a Seven Seas Transatlantic haul from Gibralter. Ironically I had put a bid in to sail her over but time was important, so she was sent by ship and she arrived 3 weeks overdue.
So once we thought we had it down to an art form, we went to Philadelphia to off load a New Zealand built NZ49/03 Posterity. We arrived at the port to find her on top of three containers stacked high from the main deck. The containers opposite were all reefers, so the noise of the fridge motors keeping all that New Zealand lamb and butter frozen was deafening. We had to top rope up to it to undo the lashings. Then the dockers decided that it was too high for the crane to lift and they discussed reballasting the boat to lower her or we could sail to New York to be unloaded by bigger cranes. If they had them? The mate had a better idea. Take it off the way it went on ie in the cradle. That meant moving a few containers that were in the way of us getting to the dock. So that is what happened we were told to get aboard and two dockers joined us, we relashed the boat to the cradle, we were picked up 1 foot and at enormous speed moved sideways even the ladder was still attached to the side of the boat, as we cleared the boat over the dock we were lowered at speed to the dock The sense of being over solid concrete and descending was most unnerving. We stopped a foot or so above the dock then set down on the dock.
We then were left to our own devices, the argument being only one lift was scheduled and paid for. After much negotiation it was agreed that we would be lifted off the cradle in to the river after the shift ie at some early hour of the morning. It as now after 1600 we had been in the port since 0700. So we left and went to get diner, then to the hotel for a few hours sleep. At 0100 we got the call, by 0300 we were in the water and by 0500 tied up in Penns Landing 23 hours after our days start. The journey to Annapolis is 90 miles and it was blowing up to 35 knots, The rocking and rolling without a mast was almost too dangerous, even in the upper Chesapeake.
A month later we were back to unload 53/11 Osprey, this was easy she was only on the 1st level ie one container up from the deck. The ship is arranged that the first four levels of containers are in the ship, they then put on hatches and fastened to these hatches are the next four levels of containers. There are nine rows across, and sixteen rows long, 2,300 TEU’s (twenty foot container units), and this is not a Panmax ship! (The large ships are up to 8,000 TEU’s)
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Despite modern communications etc the shipping companies seem unable to give one a definite arrival date and time. Even in Philadelphia when coming up the river takes 1/2 a day. So when NZ 53/21 Lady Tara arrived on Friday instead of Thursday, Customs decided to hold her for the weekend, so that they could X Ray her on the Monday. So we prepped her as much as we could on the cradle in the port and returned on Monday for the lift in to the river. It takes about 4-5 hours to remove all the packing tape and protection off the boat. One problem that plagued us was soot from the stack particularly if the boat was stowed behind the smoke stack. One boat arrived with all the floorboards screwed down. They didn’t do that to us again, they also stopped the hide and seek idea of stowage. You have no idea how much you can hide in an empty Oyster. So Will and I await the next set of minor challenges with the next boat shipped here to the US. 53/47's bow pulpit was wiped out by a lamp standard in the trucking to Florida..
The next puzzle was on 46/10 although because she was shipped from the UK RORO ie inside a ship, so was as clean as a daisy. Her electrics were all mixed up. The difference between European 240 volts AC and US 110 volts AC 50 amp, always seems to baffle those who don’t live here. Second lives(hots), neutrals and drawings that would work if the wires had followed them! Then LD43-12 survived a trip from Auckland to Philadelphia, truck to Annapolis, then three days later off on a different truck to West Palm Beach, not a scratch. Then in launching by one of the top yards in the US, the travel lift spews hydraulic oil all over the aft teak deck!
C’est la vie. If I wanted a easy job I would have stayed an economist
Pintal July 2006
Flying Oysters
