Page 23 - Michael Frost-Voyages to Maturity-23531.indd

room had begun to disappear because of the endeavours of Japan and Korea
to formulate a new industrial base, which, it was clear to those who chose to
look, those societies could successfully effect with their substantially lower costs
and highly motivated working classes. The old saw of “Who won the war?” was
common in areas like Newcastle and nearby Sunderland, where heavily bombed
and devastated neighbourhoods felt that they were competing with yards in Japan
that enjoyed a completely reconstructed infrastructure; those countries’ bombed
cities were razed while ours were merely damaged, the former rebuilt (there was
no choice), the other withering because of the shortage of public money.
A note should be made here respecting ship size and the progress of ships’
design and purposes. Firstly, while Khyber had a gross tonnage of 7,674, this figure
is not easily compared with other vessels. The ship had a ‘net’ tonnage of 4,592,
but small tankers, in most respects much larger ships, were of 12,298 gross tons
(Mantua) and 24,266 gross tons (Malwa). Later, I served on Oriana (41,915 gross
tons, then a large passenger ship) and Chitral (a passenger/cargo ship of 13,821
gross tons). By way of comparison, Titanic had a gross tonnage of 46,328 and a
displacement tonnage of 52,310. Nowadays the scale is, many would say, simply
warped, Allure of the Seas, a cruise vessel, weighing in at 225,282 gross tons.

Secondly, all of the tonnage specifications have their particular purposes,
and one cannot directly compare gross, net, deadweight, cargo and displacement
tonnage; some are best suited for passenger ships, one or two for tankers, and one
for bulk and LNG carriers. Tugs and warships enjoy their own measurements.

And thirdly, there was likewise substantial variety in ships’ propulsion. While
only the Woolwich Ferry and a few old ships (and even British admiralty tugs)
were propelled by paddle wheels with steam-reciprocating engines, the variety
thereafter included steam turbines (then the norm). Additionally, there was a
growing number of diesel-powered motor ships, some turbo-electric and even
some nuclear; though the USS Enterprise and Savannah were nuclear, less than
200 nuclear-powered commercial ships have been built, the major exception
being the very fine France (in its declining days Norway) which was designed to
be converted to nuclear power but which modification never actually occurred.
There were some oddities as well, tugs that had propellers which could operate in
any direction, jet-like nozzles, even new-style sailing ships!

The main transformative maritime changes that were beginning to occur in the
1960s were, however, more readily apparent. Most notably, the containerisation
revolution had started and was becoming significant. This transformation
of cargo-handling affected the huge number of ships of Khyber’s generation,

22