photos Rick Petrie

Built at Hyundai Heavy Industries Co Ltd. Ulsan, South Koreai, in 1984, 27,990 grt. 860 feet

Renamed Taiko in 1988 when Ocean pulled out of theBarber Blue Sea service.

More from Rick:

On 23rd March1984 I was off to Ulsan with Roger Eyre-Walker and Peter the Radio Officer. I had 3 weeks having a great time in the Hotel Diamond, the Hyundai shipyard hotel, travelling back and forth to the ship. I met up with Tony Imaz, another very astute 2/E and Bill Turner, a smashing bloke from Preston who was our chief. Stan Cooper was the 2nd chief and not so friendly, to me at least. We were joined prior to sailing by another 4/E, Andy from Hull and off we went.

The ship was 28,000 tonnes and quite a cracker. She had an 8 cylinder B & W Hyundai engine which packed a fair punch. The B & W's on the L class were a bit different and this one had more and bigger units. Instead of the mechanical single exhaust valve this one had a hydraulic exhauster with several valves per unit ( 2 or 4 I can't remember.) I was too busy trying to sort out the pipe systems and fuel systems and the gennys. We even had a waste heat boiler producing enough steam for an auxy genny. My kind of ship.

The maiden voyage was tough as we were on 12 hour watches to make sure it all ran well and got us to the official naming ceremony in time. I think it was in Houston the official start of trips on the BBS run. I can't remember exactly because as we headed for LA I got the option to get off at New York first time and rejoin her next trip in LA. That was fine for me. I put my name down and poor Andy the other 4/e had to do another round trip. Poor sod. I remember the high point of the trip was squashing a mule in the Panama canal. Not of course a live mule but one of the trains which help lug you through some of the locks. The Hector had a huge flare at her front end and I think we went a bit too quick for the train driver and he ended up nearly getting squashed. His train did!! We sailed on never the less. Good old Captn. Colin Sandy.

I got 2.5 months off and rejoined the Barber Hector in LA as promised in August 1984. As far as I knew at that time everything was rosy and being on a new ship I thought all would go well for the future. I wasn't even aware of people being laid off although they must've as the fleet was diminishing.

The B Hector was better by the next trip and we had managed to sort out a few of the usual teething problems and get her working the Ocean (Blue Flue) way. We were by now Unmanned At Sea although I'm pretty sure that we had few nights without having to get up for one ot two alarms.

On the original trip there had been lots of problems with the genny diesel oil - from purification to storage and flowmeters to filters. When I went back on the 2nd trip the chief Bill Turner had sorted it out. It turned out that for some unknown reason the diesel service and settling tanks had been full of sludge and I guess some bacterial growth or something. They had opened up the service tank and found out it was full of sludge and managed to shovel it out and wash the systems through. It all worked perfectly then.

I went around the world again in 3 months exactly and left the Hector in November 1984.