Guest 691- Registered: 24 Oct 2009
- Posts: 45
Hi.
Dover must have hundreds of cargo ships visiting then setting sail for all kinds of exotic places. Has anyone ever applied to be a passenger on one? I notice that there are websites dedicated to travel by cargo ship, but it would be interesting to hear if anyone has first hand experience of how it works and what it's like.
All the best, Matt
"In this world there are 10 sorts of people - those that understand binary and those that don't."
Keith Sansum1
- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
Would be worth knowing matthew
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
Guest 1555- Registered: 23 Jul 2015
- Posts: 29
As a deep seaman from 1959 to 2003. The latter date when I retired from the Dover Harbour Board as a Survey Cox'n.
In the early part of my sea-going career I sailed and worked on many cargo ships which took four to six passengers. In those days Great Britain had a Merchant Navy to be proud of. The pool of London was always a hive of activity and every trip in a cargo ship was an adventure for me, because of the exotic ports we visited. Cargo ships in those days could be in port for one or two weeks and if changing pistons, which we did on a regular basis in New Zealand, sometimes in Australia. Up to three weeks could be the norm. Sometimes in New Zealand we unloaded our own ships with our own cargo handling gear...and were paid for it. In those days of the fifties and sixties we traded with our Commonwealth and others including America... Now I feel we are an Island Nation lost, without a significant Merchant Navy of our own.
Joining a cargo ship as, a passenger in those days, must have been an adventure too. Cargo ships traveled the world and visited ports, which were well off the beaten track, so every trip could be different. I served in three Merchant Navies in my time, British, Australian and Norwegian, as a Motorman, Able seaman, Bosun, and in my last job as Survey Cox'n for the Dover Harbour Board. My ships were of many different types, which included Prawn trawlers in New Guinea. Cray fishing boats off the coast of Western Australia, Prawn Trawlers in Shark's Bay, Oil-rig tenders in the Southern Ocean and the North-west shelf of Australia, and many more. Those days, alas I will never see again, as modern ships do not stay in port too long now days, and not crewed with British seamen who shouted at the Devil, and be damned.
I will always be grateful I was born into a time of adventure of ships and the deep sea. My world map was made up of nightclubs, bars, and so-called houses of ill-repute, where I made many friends, and not geography. Sailing in ships from the Great Liner Queen Mary, and the Capetown Castle, to the New Zealand Shipping Company's passenger and cargo ships Rangitata, Paparoa, and Otaio. The latter a cadet ship, which trained young officers to become deck and engineroom officers. And many Cargo ships and Ferries sailing under many other flags... One including a narrow escape of changing ships just before the ill-fated Herald of Free Enterprise met her end. The man who took my place on the Herald, a childhood aquaintance, losing his life in the tragic event. My favourite ships were always cargo ships because of the time spent in port and the few passengers they carried... One of my favourite, the Rippingham Grange of Houlder Brothers.
I will miss the parties ashore, in the sly-grogging days in New Zealand, and of the crews and passengers who sailed in them with me.
Now retired in Dover and almost in my Seventy-seventh year I have many memories to keep me going and to look back on... I consider myself one of the lucky ones to have lived a life of my choosing.
I have been in Dover since coming over from India in 1947 when all the British nationals had to leave. I went to St Mary's School in Queen Steet Dover, which no longer exists. I do not like the changes being done to the Dover seafront by people who do not really have the town's people at heart. I used to play in the rock pools with my twin brother under the prince of Wales Pier and had my first job in Dover painting the wrought iron legs, which are now filled in with concrete.
I feel a sense of loss at what The Dover Harbour board is contemplating. If the Yacht Marina is moved out of the inner harbour and into the bay it will become just another rubbish dump. It is obvious that big business is moving in against the wishes of the Dover people.
I worked at the Dover Harbour Board for thirteen years on the small boats before I retired in 2003 as a survey and environmental cox'n. The last ten yearssurveying the bottom of the harbour and its approaches. I know the tides and the bottom better than my own hand...and a lot of silt moving out there. If they fill the Granville Docks in, where I used to help unload fruit boats in the good old days. It will just become another huge lorry park in the future.
I also think the small boats are open to abuse by the swarms of immigrants coming over from France and further afield. With fewer customs, once the immigrants twig there is another way in they will take it. I have been to sea in three Merchant Navies since 1959 and have always believed Britain, being an island should have had a container fleet Merchant Navy manned by british sailors, the best in the world, trading with its Commonwealth. The Greek fiasco has proved the politicians cannot be trusted,nor the big Banks, to have any intrest in the working people of Britain, only in themselves... Who owns the town, is it business interests in Europe, the Harbour Board, or is there a hidden agenda. What is the plan for the Western approaches from Shakespeare Cliff to the Admiralty pier. QUESTIONS have to be asked and honest ANSWERS given. Already European countries have huge interests in our utilities and other, used to be publicily owned, businesses. We may as well not had a war, not when we are being slowly taken over by foreign interests. Britain was once a country to be proud of and brave people defended its honour and died for it. I am seventy-seven years old now and retired. I still remember the gaps left in the high street by German bombers, and those Dover people whomust have lost their lives there. Just what did my father and those brave people fight for? I had the honour of sailing with two or three merchant seamen in the fifties and sixties, who had actually been in the water a number of times after being torpedoed. Over fifty thousand seamen died and thousands of our Navy, Airmen, and Army died for our freedom. Will the young remember them when those left are gone. I no longer free free any more, only a sense of foreboding for our younger generation.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Funnily enough John I read an article on the subject a couple of weeks back but cannot find the link to it. There seems to be less opportunity for passengers to travel on freight ships nowadays. The general concensus seems to be that passengers like eating at the same tables as the crew so that they gain knowledge of how everything operates.
