BLOG 27 - Marine Musings 4 - Becoming a 'Ghost Buster - Stuck Between Scindia's and Jayanthi's Ships

Since I have written a few lines on sound powered telephones and voice pipes in this narrative, both of which are anachronisms today, I have indulged myself in repeating an incident from Google (not mine) which, I hope, you will find amusing.

Chapter 13 – Becoming 'Ghostbusters'

THE GHOST INCIDENT:

The Bosun had a heart attack and just folded and dropped while supervising some jobs being done near the windlass forward. There was no strain on his part and, according to his colleagues / crew members around him, he was talking to them one minute and just collapsed the next minute. All parties were informed. We were on a longish voyage, so a sea burial was organised. Old cylinder head studs, which are pretty heavy by themselves, were taped to his legs so that, when the body was consigned to the waters, the feet go down first.

Arrangements were made amidship, at the gunwale, so that the body slides off a plank when lifted at one end. Draped in the Company colours, the flag was to remain on board, whilst the body slides into the water. Except for the Duty Officer and Duty Engineer, all hands were assembled on deck. The Captain gave a moving speech, the plank was lifted at one end and the body slid into the water. Being on ballast, the freeboard (the distance from the main deck to the waterline below) was pretty high and it took a few seconds for the body to drop into the water. Practically all hands rushed to the railing to witness the body being consigned to the waters.

And then the body turned so that it struck the water horizontally, head turned towards the ship, instead of vertically and feet first. To some, it was ominous.

The discerning reader may remember an earlier narrative of mine, in which I had mentioned that an entire crew perished in January 1966, in an Air India crash, the aircraft having collided with Mont Blanc. Of the 117 passengers killed, 46 were sailors flying to join their new ship, SISCO's "Chennai Perumai". Dr. Homi Bhabha also lost his life in the same crash.

Following this incident, after the ship started sailing, there had been several reports of the Steering Gear Room being haunted by ghosts, with people claiming to have seen a ghost. I spent two years on the ship and, as part of my duties, had to enter the Steering Gear Room daily, at odd hours of the night. I had been appraised of the 'ghost' in the Steering Room, but found no evidence of anything abnormal, except for some oil leakages from hydraulic rams' seals.

It was the third day after the sea burial. I was keeping the 8~12 watch, which meant keeping the 2000~2400 watch. I had a motorman in my watch, initials DC, a 6ft4” tall, slim bodied, a huge moustache which connected his upper lip hair to his long sidelocks, dark of complexion who, by himself, can be a terrorising apparition on a lonely stretch of road on a dark night. His duty was to go to the accommodation at around 2340H and wake his counterpart and also the Engineer of the next watch.

Here I digress slightly from my narrative to write about what sort of internal communication system we had on this hip.

Those were the days when the only ‘telephone’ was the sound powered telephone, which was connected to 5 places - Bridge, Engine Room, Steering Gear Room, Captain’s cabin and Chief Engineer’s cabin.

One selected the appropriate location one wished to call and rotated a small handle at the side. At the other end, a bell would ring. For the Engine Room and Steering Gear Rooms the bell would ring and a red light would also rotate and flash, to seek your attention in a sound filled atmosphere. Calls between the Bridge and Engine Room were frequent. Calls between the Bridge / Engine Room - Steering Gear were occasional, whenever the Emergency Steering was tried out. Calls to the Captain or the Chief Engineer were at your peril - it better be a real emergency - or else be ready for a real chewing out.

Copied from Gobizkorea.com

The last means of communications, besides rushing physically to a spot, was the Voice Pipe, just a stretch of tubing plugged with whistles at either end. One takes out the whistle, blows into the pipe to activate the whistle at the other end and speaks into the tube.

(I wanted to post a lovely - and exact - photograph from Alamy, but I would have to pay Rs. 1200 for the photograph, so sorry.)

Modern electronics in communication have made these two quaint arrangements totally redundant. Today, there are multiple means of communicating - the Public Call System, the telephone to all areas including all cabins, hand held VHF sets or directly linked cable phones between several strategic points, with headphones.

Like I said before, it was the third night after the sea burial had taken place. During that particular night watch, I had the notion that he - the dark apparition of the 6’4” moustachioed Motorman - was hovering in my sight or always in my vicinity during the entire watch. His normal routine during the watch was well defined and was supposed to carry him to different parts of the Engine Room, not necessarily within my eye line. I was a little perplexed but let it slide, as I was busy.

At around 2340H, I found he had still not gone up to wake up the next watch keeper. When asked, he was, at first, reluctant to answer. On pressing him gently – as I felt this had to be explored delicately – he told me in Tamil

“Saar, mela oru pei irrukuthu; adhu andha Bosunoda pei: rathiri 12 manikku veliyile varuthu”.

Translation : “Sir, there is a ghost on top; it is the Bosun’s ghost; it comes out at midnight”.

Seeing the obvious fright on a frame that would scare any ghost, I gave him some space by not ridiculing him and told him ‘Okay, I’ll go up for a few minutes and wake them and come back”. He showed relief but was worried about my safety. I told him I was not afraid of any ghosts and so I went up, woke up the watch keepers and came down again.

This fright amongst the crew was palpable and quickly escalated. There seemed to be some commotion or the other around midnight 2 days running, which provoked the crew to go as a group to the Captain the next day to complain.

The Captain did not know much of Hindi, which was the lingua franca of most of the crew (the Deck Crew spoke Gujarati between themselves and the Galley Goan staff Konkani)) and probably did not fully understand their grievances. He seemed to have sent them away with the advice “Catch the ghost and bring it to me and I will deal with it”. The crew understood his instruction in this way, as was told to me by one of them "Saab, Captain Saab bolta hai, booth ko pakadke le aao. Hum kaise ek booth ke pakadenge?" Which, translated means "Sir, Captain Sir is telling us to catch the ghost. How do we catch a ghost?" In one respect it was getting hilarious but on the other hand, it was getting cumbersome for me as I had a Motorman who was so frightened that he could not attend to his duties without my presence.

The two seater Bosun's cabin had been evacuated by the other occupant, in fright and kept locked. People, including Officers, had gone to the extent of locking their doors and keeping the key in the lock, so that the 'ghost' could not enter. It was getting ludicrous had it not been for the 'fright' factor.

My habitual routine after the watch, when I come up from the Engine Room at midnight+ was to take a shower and meet the Third Mate in the Officers’ Smoke Room, listen to music on the Grundig Radiogram, have a beer and a bite and go to sleep by 0100H or so.

On the third night of these occurrences, the Third Mate and I kept the Smoke Room door open to see if there was any commotion from the deck below, which was the crew’s quarters. Sure enough, at around 0030H (midnight 30) we heard some voices raised from one corridor and, hardly a minute later, a door banging shut from another corridor.

So, we both went down to investigate and found most of the crew coming out of their cabins, shocked and scared. On asking about what happened, the steward department staff, who had a 4 person cabin, told us that their cabin door was on the hook, which hook kept the door open by about 4”. A hand had appeared and switched on the light, which woke up everyone in the cabin. Two of the 4 had seen the hand appear and disappear. On further questioning, one of the stewards mentioned that he also saw a Seiko wrist watch on that hand. "Woh booth ek Seiko watch bee pen raha tha, Bosun ke mafiq" "That ghost was also wearing a Seiko watch, just like the Bosun's".

After calming things down, we told them to go back to sleep and that nothing further will happen. A little reassured, they went back to sleep.

I was perplexed by the sound I had heard of a door shutting in another corridor and was certain “the hand” was tied to this. The only occupant of a cabin in that part of the corridor was the Chief Steward, who was seldom sober at night.

We decided to talk to him next day, during the day, when he was sober. We pulled him aside and warned him indirectly, without seeming to do so, that ‘whosoever is playing this prank and wearing a Seiko watch (which he was) was likely to quietly disappear if caught by the crew, with no trace of him being found the next day.’

The Third Mate, a robust Sardarji, and me, knowing the truth, assured the crew all would be well. To expel any doubts, we stayed in the Bosun's room for an hour, lit some 'Agar Battis' (incense sticks) and, later, came out.

The Captain later called us and, after finding out what had really transpired, just smiled and nodded his head.

This put an end to all ‘ghost’ incidents.

I think we went to Jacksonville on the east coast of the USA, where we loaded grain for India. We returned through Cape Aegulas and went on to discharge part of the cargo at Bombay, before proceeding to Kandla for complete discharge.

One may well ask ‘why do you discharge a part of the cargo in Bombay in Bombay? Why not all in either Bombay or Kandla?’.

The reason is

A. Kandla did not have a deep water port (at that time), so we had to ‘lighten’ the ship at Bombay, to get the vessel to a lower draft, so she could enter Kandla and

B. Bombay did not have enough storage facilities for grain, whereas the Food Corporation of India had large storage facilities around Kandla.

Chapter 14 – Scindia’s and Jayanthi ships

KANDLA sometime around March ~ April 1972: (A feeling of deja vu’ - it was exactly fifty years ago, give or take a couple of weeks)

The long stay in Kandla was very productive from a maintenance standpoint, as we had a lot of time to catch up on pending and overdue maintenance. As there was literally nothing in Kandla town for us to go ashore for, we had our evenings free. I was already hell bent on preparing for my II Class Part ‘B’ exam, so, as I was on ‘day work’ with no watch keeping duties, I kept to myself and was busy studying and taking notes.

But there were things happening around me that I was unaware of, till later.

There was a Scindia ship ahead of us and a Jayanti ship behind us. The top four – Master, Chief Engineer, Chief Officer, Second Engineer - amongst each ship were fraternising by going across to each other’s ship for a drink and chat.

When Marine Engineers get together, they talk engines.

My seniors were no different. The Scindia ship had an MAN KSZ engine, a more advanced engine type than our KZ type. The Jayanthi ship had Sulzer engines, which performance and features they were pridefully extolling, calling it the Engineer’s Engine, to the detriment of the MAN engines. This did not go down too well with Scindia seniors nor my seniors, for that matter.

Somehow, we were more friendly with the Scindia ship’s staff than the Jayanthi ship’s staff. It could have been because quite a number of Scindia staff had joined SISCO at its inception, hoping for faster promotions. Also, there was a big slice of snobbery amongst the Jayanthi staff – “In Jayanthi’s we do this this-a-way and that-a-way” - , which was tolerated, but did not go down well with us.

OVERHAULING FUEL PUMPS ON A SCINDIA SHIP

The Scindia ship’s Chief Engineer had come over to our ship and was chatting with our Chief Engineer, Mr Rajagopal and also talking shop. He mentioned that he and his staff were apprehensive of opening and overhauling Main Engine fuel pumps, as he nor his staff had ever done it before. He had noticed that we were doing so, when he had gone down to the Engine Room along with our Chief.

The Scindia ship’s Main Engine was a later version of ours, KSZ Type, where design changes had eliminated many of the faults that we had in our engine, but most essential parts remaining the same.

I was, by then, very thorough in my knowledge of Fuel Pumps, so, in a show of one upmanship, my Chief told him “I’ll send my Fourth Engineer across to show how it is done”. I was deputed.

By nature, I am not a show off. The next day found me on board the Scindia ship, where I overhauled two pumps and showed them exactly, on a step-by-step basis how to do it perfectly. I, as a matter of fact, answered all their doubts and queries.

Fuel pumps, by design, are complicated. The internal parts include a large top nut torqued to a certain specification, a finely lapped discharge valve with a small spring atop it, a plunger and barrel machined to very fine tolerances and being heat treated before fine polishing, a collar on the end of the plunger which is housed in a hollow cylindrical part having a toothed outer rim which is connected to the fuel regulating mechanism, with two springs at the bottom – one left handed and one right handed – to dampen resonance, the moving parts being activated by a cam on the camshaft.

On dismantling the fuel pump, it is difficult to measure wear or tolerances without having access to sensitive equipment which are available only in laboratories, none being provided on board. So, a Marine Engineer devises his own set of measurements.

For example, the tolerances between plunger and barrel can be estimated by first cleaning the parts gently, drying them and applying a fine coating of lubricating oil on the surfaces. Now on inserting the plunger into the barrel, the plunger should slide slowly down into the barrel and should not drop fast. The time taken for the plunger to go fully into the barrel can be measured with a stop watch and compared to the same action on a brand new (spare) plunger and barrel.

The springs may get elongated due to loss of resilience, which can be found by measuring the height and comparing with a new spring. Such run of the mill measures can be taken when not having sophisticated instruments.

Fuel pumps play a very important role in engine performance. Within a working stroke of hardly 70 to 80 mm, the plunger has to take the pressure from around 7 bar to 700 ~ 800 bar, which pressure determines a host of parameters that define engine performance. It does this pumping 120 times in a minute, all day, sometimes for 40 days at a stretch. So, one can imagine the reliability it should possess. All Main Engine parts need to possess this reliability.

Within no time, due to my teaching them all the practical and theoretical applications of the Fuel Pump, they had all become very friendly with me.

I showed them how to check the ‘timing’ of fuel injection and how to adjust it to manufacturer’s recommended statistics, by adjusting cams on the camshaft. Altogether, it was a learning experience for them and a crystallisation of my acquired knowledge. During this episode, I also realised I had a flair for teaching.

They had other problems on other machinery, for which I was able to suggest solutions.

I have to thank my Chief Engineer Mr. Rajagopal and Second Engineer Mr. Shankar for this depth of knowledge.

One of the Junior Engineers on that ship was Singh, a year junior to me, and a top class table tennis player to boot. We had a pretty good Sundar table on board, so we started playing on board our ship, with ship mates from both ships joining together for some evenings of fun. Singh started spending more time on our ship than his, mostly keeping me company, whether I was at work or off.

JAYANTHI SHIP AND OURS – A TABLE TENNIS MATCH:

Meanwhile, our Captain and Chief Engineer were invited over to the Jayanti ship and they were taken around. It must be said here that Jayanthi’s were the first company in India to build and operate superior ships – superior in design, materials used, beautiful accommodation and facilities for the staff on board, including a swimming pool, which was unheard of on Indian ships of that time. (If one wanted a swim, he jumped into the sea and braved the sharks.) They were the first to have centrally air conditioned ships, which became a bench mark for other owners, including SISCO. Their recreation area was a delight and, there in the midst of a large room, stood a beautiful table tennis table which, unlike ours, had a lot of space around the table, which meant one could play a normal and natural game.

Our Captain had a playful streak in him. He asked the Jayanthi ship Captain “You have such a good table tennis table; you must be having very good players”. The Jayanthi Captain very proudly said “We have excellent players on board. How about a Davis Cup style match(es) between your ship and ours?”. Our Captain replied that there were very good players on his ship too and the Jayanthi ship Captain may regret the challenge. No one backed away and a bottle of Chivas Regal was to become the victim between the two. The match was to take place 2 days later.

Rapidly, the news got around and all Officers and crew of the two ships got involved. Bets were placed and accepted which, as I learnt later, exceeded totals of Rs 40,000, a pretty big amount in those days. It became a matter of prestige and face.

Apart from me, the others on board my ship were not very good players. We would have to play 2 singles, 1 doubles and 2 reverse singles. I was not certain we would win the doubles, with a possible result careening towards the Jayanthi ship, making it 3-2 in their favour a possibility. That was not acceptable to our Captain, who wanted a clear result in our favour. There seemed to be a clash of egos here, between the 2 Captains.

We resorted to a subterfuge. My Chief Engineer asked the Scindia’s Chief Engineer for the loan of their Engineer Singh for 3 days, which was gladly given, due to all the help we had given them in their maintenance. So, unofficially, Singh became part of our ship’s complement. As it is, he was spending all his free time with us in order to play table tennis, such being his passion for the game. He had been a Punjab Junior level state champion and, later, played for DMET. I had played for my College and Osmania University and, later, for DMET.

The Jayanthi staff had no inkling of what was going to hit them. In all fairness, we had not seen them play, nor had they seen us play. Singh and I asked for 15 minutes of practice, without an audience, to get a feel of the table.

Poor guys; they were not able to get more than 10 points in any set and we won all 5 matches hands down. The real winners were my ship’s crew and officers who had betted heavily on us. Unfair, but an unforgettable incident.

Since I am not able to put up the picture of a genuine, on board, voice pipe, I am taking the liberty of recalling an amusing episode I read / came across when Googling voice pipes.

Left: Voice pipe cartoon in Wireless World: 1960

Demonstrating that voice pipes were still familiar things in 1960. The butler is holding the call whistle in his right hand.

From the December 1960 issue of Wireless World, once an influential journal on radio and electronics.

Quote

I have just been sent this story by Mr Marcus de Mowbray:

Have just been having one of my many browses on your superb site and was looking at the Voice pipes and Speaking Tubes and noticed them in the photo of the Avro Tutor and you might be amused by this novel use of a speaking tube....

My father was a trainee Observer/Navigator in the Fleet Air Arm towards the end of WW2, flying in Swordfish, Albacore, Baracuda and various other planes. His favourite and most regular pilot was completely beyond discipline and always keen on having fun.

One time at night at sea in freezing winter weather he told the pilot to change course, using the speaking tube and its other end in the pilot's helmet. The pilot disobeyed and carried on having fun and going wherever he wanted.

After two more ignored orders Dad was very concerned about getting lost and having to ditch, so in desperation he held the mouth-piece out into the freezing air stream,so the pilot got jets of freezing air blasted straight into his ears. Dad's only other comment about the incident was "He never disobeyed me again".

The pilot was eventually "released" from service because it was felt he could "... do more for the War Effort making patriotic films than by bending any more valuable aircraft"; he was Laurence Olivier.

Unquote

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