Floating Lies and Sinking Truth - P1 COMPLETE

Chapter Six - July 1980

Four Days Earlier...

The Captain sat at his desk writing a letter to a young family friend who was interested in becoming a captain. How to convey to someone who had no experience of large ships how big his ship, the MV Shire really was.

Can you imagine 250,000 tonnes? That is two hundred and fifty thousand tonnes? Or approximately 160,000 cars or over 800 jumbo jets. A quarter of a million tonnes!

It is hard to imagine an object that could be that heavy let alone an object that heavy that can move! The MV Shire is a huge cargo ship and weighs around 90,000 tonnes empty and can then carry 160,000 tonnes of cargo.

At nearly 300 metres long it is the size of three football fields. It is HUGE and it can cross the world's oceans at over 17 miles per hour.

The crew of 42 who work aboard the ship, day in and day out to keep it running smoothly are a mixed bunch of people who work hard and play harder. They play harder because once you set off on a voyage there is no stepping off to visit the shops or to visit family and friends...you are stuck aboard for the duration. Stuck aboard with a group of people, some of whom you may know and others complete strangers. Some of them are good people, some are less so!

*

The afternoon sun beat down on the ship as it came into dock in the drab and grey industrial dock along the St Lawrence Inlet. The crew looked out grimly at the desolate piles of Iron Ore, the giant pyramid shaped piles of dark brown and black rock looked, from a distance, inviting but once loading commenced the dust and dirt it would create would make you lose any romantic illusions.

The crew were a mix of emotions; some were leaving the ship to return home after finishing their contract and others had many more months at sea ahead of them. Those leaving the ship would be replaced by a fresh compliment of crew bringing with it a mix of people, personalities and emotions.

The Captain Steven Jones stood on the Bridge Wing high up above the ground and saw the deck crew tidying up and the dock workers ensuring everything was secure. The Bridge Wings stretched out either side of the Bridge and enabled you to see over the side of the ship and all the way along the hull. The Bridge was the ships equivalent of an aeroplanes cockpit and contained all the controls for driving the ship. Funny that like a plane it also had wings!

Captain Jones was a proud man, proud of his position and always took extra care to have his uniform literally ship shape. Captain Jones strode around the Bridge Wing gleaming white in his washed and pressed uniform with the sun glinting off the golden epilates on his shoulders. His outward appearance was a true reflection of the hard working and studious captain that he was.

Captain Jones pride was well founded as he was the captain of one of the largest cargo ships in service and it was rated as A1, the highest classification for safety and quality. In addition to that the ship was only four years old so it was a ship with decades more service ahead of it. Jones was going to make sure that his tenure as captain of the ship would be a successful one which would be well noted in the history of the ship when it should come to be retired in thirty, forty or even fifty years' time.

*

Despite his fastidious approach to his uniform Captain Jones rarely wore his Captains hat, mainly as it was impractical on the deck of a ship but also because he thought it a touch over the top. One thing Captain Jones did like about his hat though was it covered his thinning brown hair and provided shade for his deep brown eyes.

After looking down to ensure his uniform was correct he looked into the distance at the far end of the ship, over 250 metres away, Captain Jones squinted then reached for the binoculars to get a better look. Everything was looking good and Captain Jones smiled. The deck was a bright red colour and dominated by eight huge mechanical hatches, which would soon be opened and loaded with iron ore, around 150,000 tonnes of it.

'Crew status please CO' Jones called out over his shoulder to the Chief Officer compiling paperwork at the back of the Bridge.

'Of the 42 crew members Cap twenty are leaving us here in Quebec and twenty replacements arriving tomorrow.'

'Oh, they're not arriving today?' the Captain replied.

'No Cap, slight mess up back at the office but it won't affect operations whilst we're in port. They'll be no delay in loading or setting sail.' The Chief Officer responded assuredly.

'Very good Eliot' the Captain replied looking at the Chief Officer.