fourth ship- state of orissa

I reported to the office after completion of the holidays. I was given accommodation in a hotel near the harbour and asked to come to the office everyday till they allocate me a ship. I did paper work there, which was mostly filing. This lasted for about a week or so. I was posted on a general cargo ship,” M.V. State of Orissa”. The ship was on the UK route, which was not a new thing for me.

After completing the joining formalities, I joined the ship, my first ship as an officer.As a third officer, I was responsible for the Life Saving Appliances-Fire Fighting Appliances (LSA-FFA) of the ship. At sea, I had to do watches from 0800 to 1200 and 2000 to 2400. Apart from this, I had to spend at least 4 hrs everyday towards the maintenance of LSA/FFA. In port, I had to do watch-keeping from 0600 to 1800.

Since, I was used to doing all these, right from my first ship; I found it easy to do my routine jobs. The ship was discharging general cargo in Bombay. We completed discharging and left for Madras. I used to finish my port watches and come home to spend the night. After Madras, the ship went to Calcutta. Completed discharging there and loaded cargo for UK. We came to Madras, loaded some more cargo and left for Suez. After crossing Suez Canal, the ship headed towards UK.

After we discharged/loaded in ports there, we sailed to India via Suez, to discharge and load in India. Things were normal till the winter time. When we were sailing towards Suez, with cargo loaded for India, the ship was in Bay of Biscay and we encountered very heavy seas and the ship was rolling upto 40˚ on either side. Due to the rolling, the lashing of pipes stowed in no.1 cargo hold tween deck broke and the pipes got free. The pipes smashed drums of chemicals kept on either side. The chemicals were dangerous in nature and had spilled all over the cargo hold. The Master had to report the incident to Office and the ship was diverted to Bilbao (Spain). We were berthed there and a superintendent from London Office came to assess the situation and to sort things out. The port workers refused to enter the cargo hold because of the dangerous nature of the cargo and so did the ship’s crew. The chief Officer, 2/O, myself, 4/O and cadet were inside the hold to remove the drums and pipes. The ship’s crew operated the cranes. The pipes were taken out first. Then the drums were removed, including the damaged drums. The gas inside the cargo hold was just too much for us, making breathing very difficult.  Somehow we managed to remove the drums. The chemical was transferred to new drums and re-stowed again. Proper lashing was taken and the pipes were kept in position and they were also lashed. Thanks to our lucky stars, that nothing serious had happened.
Just a couple of months before, another cargo ship which had encountered bad weather and the lashing of cargo got loose, damaged the hull and the ship sunk in Bay of Biscay. Only a few of the crew members managed to escape.

When the ship reached India, an enquiry was held on board and all officers had to give written statements, as to what had happened. After discharging the cargo in Bombay, Madras and Calcutta, the ship came back to Madras for dry-docking.

It was about 30 days of stay in Madras. I used to come home, almost every day after finishing my watch-keeping. I got pass for Appa and Amma and showed them the ship. The dry-docking went as usual. This was my third dry-docking experience. It was a nice experience to do a dry dock in Madras.

Once, we loaded onions in bags for Colombo from Bombay. This was the first time I was seeing anything edible being loaded in a ship. Srilanka was facing severe shortage of onions during the new year of 1994.

During one of our trips to UK, I went to London for sightseeing. The ship was in Swansea and we had port holidays. Five of us went to London in train from Swansea. It was about 2 hours to London. We reached London- Paddington station and from there took a bus, which was especially for sightseeing. After completing the sightseeing by bus we went to Madame Tussad’s. It was an amazing experience over there. We saw statues of many celebrities there and took photos standing next to them.

I had completed more than one year by the time the ship reached Bombay and had applied for relief. Office had informed that I would be signing off, when the ship berths. The safety equipment survey was due upon berthing and I had all the things nicely arranged and labelled in the bridge. It was monsoon time in Bombay and the ship was at anchor, inside the inner anchorage. I got a call early in the morning at around 0700 from the 4th officer. This was not normal and I rushed to the bridge. When I went to the bridge, I saw the Capt, Ch. Off, 4th Off and Cadet already there and they seemed to be tense. I saw around the ship and had a clue as to what had happened.The ship had dragged anchor and was aground. Other ships around us were heading in a different direction.

The Ch.Off asked me to take the sounding (depth of water) around the ship and also to check the drafts. I took the cadet and one senior crew member along with me and took the soundings and drafts. As soon as I saw the drafts, I was very sure that the ship had run aground. I informed the same to Master and Ch.Off. Master informed the office regarding this and also informed Bombay Port Control. I was on the bridge, checking the bearings, ship’s heading and the distance to land at regular intervals. Shortly, a pilot came on board and a tug came some time after. As it was flood tide, the ship started to float. Ch.Off was forward, trying to heave up the anchor. The tug gave a push and the ship was fully floating. But during the push, the bottom of the ship came into contact with a rock in the bottom and the fuel tank there was ruptured. We could see oil coming out of the air pipes.
The port control asked the ship to shift anchorage to some other position far off. We reanchored there and had to clean the oil so that it doesn’t enter the sea. Crew members refused to work. It was pouring very heavily at that time. It was us officers, who did the cleaning job.

Next day, early morning, the port control, asked us to proceed to the pilot boarding area, as we had to berth. I was very happy, that I would be getting off, in a day or two. We picked up anchor, proceeded towards the pilot boarding ground and the pilot took us inside the docks. Once, we berthed, I had to be on watch, since it was day time. We were expecting other surveys like load line and safety construction too and so workshop people boarded the ship.

Cargo work resumed in some cargo holds. The workshop guys wanted to test the rubber packing of no.3 cargo hold. So the hatch covers were closed, but forward part of tween deck was open, since cargo work has been taking place. I went inside the cargo hold with one of those guys, with a torch. The crew started hosing down on top and we were inside, checking for leaks. When they were hosing down the forward part of the hatch cover, the workshop guy wanted to go fwd to check for leaks and he started walking forward. He was not aware of the open tween deck and had he taken some more steps, he would have fallen down. Realising that he may fall down, I quickly went up to him and dragged him away. In the process, I lost my balance and I fell down into the lower hold. It was a free fall, about 35 feet into the cargo hold and I landed on top of some of the cargo boxes. By then, he had alerted the people on top and they opened the hatch covers to find me lying on top of the cargo. Somebody came inside and asked me, if I was ok. I told that I was fine, but could not move my hands. A stretcher was arranged and it was lowered inside the cargo hold. I was put on the stretcher and the crane started lifting me up. I was feeling lots of pain in both my arms, due to the jerky movements, that I started shouting. They stopped it and then tied ropes to the stretcher and slowly lifted me up. I was brought up to the main deck. The Ch. Off had come and he saw me. He asked me where I was feeling pain. I saw that my right wrist was badly deformed and that I had severe pain in my left shoulder. I told him that I was feeling pain in my right wrist and left shoulder and apart from that, I could not feel pain elsewhere. He asked me to move my legs, which I did. He must have realised that my hands were fractured. So he told somebody to bring some splint and some bandages. He tied my arms so that they can’t move.
I was taken out of the ship to a jeep of some workshop and they took me to some hospital (I don’t remember the name of the hospital). I was shouting in pain all the time. The hospital authorities refused admission as this was an accident case. The Ch.Off, contacted head office and they asked the Ch.Off to take me to a hospital in Charni Road.

What happened next? Read it in the next part...

TOTAL TIME SPENT ON BOARD: 1 year and 22 days

PORTS VISITED: IN INDIA- Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, Haldia, Paradip, Vizag
FOREIGN: Suez and Port Said(Egypt), Rotterdam(Holland), Antwerp(Belgium), Dundee(U.K), Bremen and Hamburg(Germany), Swansea(U.K), Dunkirque(France), Uddevalla(Sweden), Port de Bouc(France), Civitavecchia(Italy)