News

01/28/02 - Tony Bond (my father) and his new vanity 'VINDI 51' license plates he received from Rita (my mother) for Christmas this year.

3/10/02 - The world has lost another Vindi Boy, Jim Bonnie , Deck/56, of Holyhead, Anglesey, North Wales crossed the bar last week. Jim was one of the earliest PalTalk members and will be sadly missed by all. Fair winds and smooth sailing, old shipmate.

A few days ago, on Tuesday 7th May,2002, I was Master of the B.C. ferry "Queen of Saanich" when, approaching the mainland terminal at Tsawwassen, just south of Vancouver, B.C., we passed close under the stern of a giant container ship, the "Hatsu Envoy", making its approach to the adjacent Robert's Bank Container Terminal. I was surprised to note that it flew the Red Duster aft, and was registered in London.

I had not seen a British-flagged ship, especially one registered in London, for many years on this coast, so I was interested to find out about her. I did some surfing and contacted the inbound pilot, Captain Jim Brady, for information. This is what I found out, and be ready for some very big numbers where dry cargo ships are concerned.

The "Hatsu Envoy" was launched in March of this year by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries' Kobe shipyard for Hatsu Marine Ltd of London. a new part of the Taiwan-based Evergreen Group of companies. Evergreen is a big operator in the Pacific and slot-shares ( i.e. "I'll carry your containers if you'll carry mine") with Lloyd Triestano. She is apparently beneficially-owned by Halifax Leasing. Although I couldn't confirm it, I suspect that Halifax Leasing is an arm of the Halifax Building Society, which I understand is now virtually a fully-fledged bank. This is just a hunch.

The Red Duster has always been a flag-of-convenience ( I know, it hurts to think so), more accurately a flag-of-financial convenience, because British tax laws allow 100% free depreciation of the asset in the first year. CP Ships was a classic case of a foreign-owned company operating under the Red Duster for financial convenience (maybe you can think of some others). Canadian tax law is not so generous. Cash-rich banks ( or building societies) are loath to pay tax on all that cash, so they "buy" a ship with the cash, write it down in the first year and lease it back to the ship-operator, who's not so flush, but needs a ship. Greyhound Bus Lines in the U.S. beneficially-owned hundreds of ships in this way.

The "Hatsu Envoy" is one of 5 identical ships being built for this service. She trades on a fixed schedule almost as rigid as ours. From Vancouver, she heads west across the Pacific to Kaohsiung, Taiwan; Hong Kong; and Yantian, Guandong Province, China. At Yantian she turns around and heads back east, calling at Hong Kong; Kaohsiung; Los Angeles; Tacoma, Wash; and back up to Vancouver. From her schedule it appears that she does all this in a round-trip time of 35 days.

When the schedule says "on the berth" at xxxx hrs, it means precisely that. Woe betide any Master who presents his ship late. It's a very neurotic business. ( I remember in 1973 I worked on the "CP Voyageur", and we turned around in Rotterdam in 6 hours, in Le Havre, 12 hours, and in those days, London in about 3 days- and that is from the longshoremen releasing the deck lashings as we were tying up to them finishing lashing the last containers as we singled-up to sail).

The "Hatsu Envoy" towered above the "Queen of Saanich". She is 983.7 feet long, 140.4 feet wide, with a service draft of 44.3 feet. She can carry 6,332 TEU (twenty-foot-equivalent-units) containers, stacking them 17 abreast on deck, and 15 wide below deck. At 44.3 feet draft she has a deadweight capacity of 76,000 tonnes ( yes, I know, more foreign units to baffle us). A single 12-cylinder Mitsubishi-Sulzer main engine develops a whopping 66,120 brake horse power, which drives this beast along at a service speed of 25 knots ( they always have power in hand, like warships, in case they get behind schedule). Our Chief Engineer says she'll burn about 60 tonnes a day at that speed.

Last but not least, who is manning this UK-registered monster? Well, eventually i got through to the inbound pilot and he said they were Chinese top to bottom. Whether they were Hong-Kong Chinese doesn't matter much today. It's all one. And the ship is managed out of London by Evergreen Ship Management. Apparently the UK Manning Regs. have gone the way of the dodo bird. No more U.K. nationals, even as Master and Chief Engineer.
The promo blurb says that "Hatsu Marine will meet the requirements for inclusion within the United Kingdom tonnage tax regime. This includes flying the Red Ensign and training a significant number of cadets on our vessels".

So there it is. She's 2 1/2 times the length of the "Queen of Saanich". When I was an apprentice with Silver Line, in 1967, I was on the M.V. "Sigsilver", the largest dry cargo in the world at that time. She was about the same length, 134 feet wide, 50 foot draft when loaded with 123,000 tons of iron ore, had a 23,000 hp, 13-cylinder Sulzer which gave her the usual bulk-carrier speed of 14 knots. Heaven help you if you were working in the forecastle, went aft for smoko and found you'd left something important up forward. A round trip of the deck was 1/3rd of a mile and you could kiss your smoko goodbye.

Bidadari Cemetery in Singapore holds amongst its graves the remains of Merchant Seamen who died during the fall of Singapore during WWII and who died in the infamous Changi Jail. There are also graves of Merchant Seamen who have died as a result of accidents while in Singapore. The Cemetery is now being redeveloped for housing and any unclaimed remains are to be cremated and scattered at sea leaving no reminder they ever existed. Not anymore!!!. A small group of dedicated people including ex Merchant Seamen have been in touch with the authorities in Singapore to protest at what is happening. We cannot stop what they are doing but we have now been granted permission to have a memorial plaque made to be kept in a garden of remembrance in their memory. The money for this plaque has to be raised by us as well as money for the upkeep of the plaque itself. A legitimate fund has now been set up to raise the money needed and any donations can be made out to "The Bidadari Memorial Fund" and sent to the following address. To read all the updates on what is happening go to the following link. If you can, please help.

Mr. Russell Evans, Southampton Direct Business Centre, Lloyds T.S.B. Bank PLC, P.O. Box 1050 Southampton SO14 2FD U.K.

Bert Harrison was born on April 17th in Kent, UK and joined the Vindi in 1926 for a one off training period as a seaman when poor drainage forced the closure of Gravesend Sea School. With his son and grandson at his side he passed away peacefully on July 10,2002 in Queensland Australia. As per his wishes he was cremated the same day without ceremony and his ashes were scattered into the sea from Redcliffe Cliffs, Queensland.

Help is needed identifying two people in the following picture for Phillip Hughes:

I have just come back from my first Vindi Reunion in Sharpness and I would not have missed it for the world. My time at the reunion was spent meeting and greeting long lost shipmates, by that I mean, I might not have sailed with any of them but we were all brothers and all had the same experiences that we may as well have spent our days on the same ships and in the same ports. I am only sorry that I was so busy having a good time that I forgot to take more pictures but Rita has persuaded me to go back next year for the unveiling and dedication of our Monument. I can finally put some faces to the voices that I talk to on PALTALK and look forward to having many more conversations with them now that we all share new and never to be forgotten memories.

In 2001 while attending the annual Sharpness Vindicatrix Association, Ed Pollard, Dave Ashton, Peter Nicholson, Terry Calpin and Charlie Harrigan on behalf of the entire CANADA/USA Vindi Branch presented Robin Hurst with this 'Thank-you for all your help' plaque. Without Robin's help this branch might very well still be in the wishful thinking' stages. Thank you for all your help, Robin.