Page 21 - Michael Frost-Voyages to Maturity-23531.indd

The processes of unloading and then loading cargoes were labour-intensive
and long-winded. Khyber was by that time a fairly old ship (twenty years of
seagoing was an average ship’s life, especially if trading in some of the world’s
more rugged environments) and when I joined the ship, much maintenance,
particularly to the engine, was required before leaving London.

Captain Adie joined the vessel, quietly and unostentatiously. With the other
officers, I was introduced to a taciturn and gentlemanly figure who had been
captain of other P&O ships, and probably did not see the appointment to Khyber as
a favourable step in his career path. Nor was the list of ports very stimulating; our
first port of call was to be Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a city of which I had no knowledge
but which lay in one of the more impoverished parts of northern England.

A few hours after Captain Adie joined us, we set sail. I had always expected
a departure from a ship’s home-port to be more symbolic, perhaps with
some splendour, but this departure, in drizzle, was drab and gloomy. With
the prevailing north-west wind, and the cold sea funneling the waters into
the narrow English Channel, the North Sea is notoriously nasty, often fog-
shrouded, and full of small coastal vessels and fishing boats who believe in their
divine right to have navigational priority at all times. The unruly weather has in
the past resulted in tidal surges that have caused many devastating floods and
mayhem, leading to high dikes in the Netherlands and the construction of the
Thames Barrier in Woolwich.

Leaving London, on November 8th, introduced me to one of the worst
periods of North Sea weather. I found myself on the 8-12 watch, but one needs
to be ready for anything in the eastern reaches of the Thames, so ‘stations’ on
the foredeck were maintained for over two hours. I finally climbed into my
bunk only after 2 am.

The following day dawned cloudy, misty and very cold. The whole morning was
spent learning about the radar, at that time a comparatively new navigational tool
but surprisingly to me, quite a delicate one; it was very easy to lose small vessels in
the sea ‘clutter’, which one could only eliminate by reducing sensitivity, thus losing
the very echoes of those small ships that one was trying to enhance. Therefore,
certainly in that day and age, human eyes (and ears, the collision regulations
requiring vessels whistles to be sounded at intervals which depended upon a
number of factors, particularly whether the vessel was stopped or underway, rules
almost universally ignored by small boat mariners) were often far more reliable
than electronic aids. This ‘lookout’ task had to be carried out from the open bridge
wing, a chilling experience that made me look forward to the tropics.

20