Memories

Many years ago I was unloading a tank ship in Edmonds wa which has a long pier. Edmonds was just a small town with a ferry dock and the UO pier. Not a lot there at the time. Union Oil had a tank farm south of there maybe a quarter mile. Tank ships came in and one of my jobs was to unload it. Ships tie up to a dock with a bow line, stern line and one called a spring line. It kept the ship from sliding back and forth. It is the ships responsibility to see it is secured properly. The dock man has an interest too of course. They throw a heaving line attached to the big rope that secures it to the dock. All I had to do was pull the looped end and put it over the cleat so it was secure and could not come loose. Anyway these guys didn't do a good job of securing it to the posts on the ship with enough loops to keep it from sliding loose. After we got the 8 or 10 inch hose hooked up to unload and pump the oil off they went back inside the ship after starting the pumps. They can pump 7 , 8 thousand barrels an hour if I remember right.. Which is about 300 or 400,000 gallons an hour. Big tankers can do more with a bigger hose. But after getting started these guys went inside to have coffee or something knowing the would be there a few hours. But after a while the lines began to loosen because they didn't tie them up securely and the tide which runs pretty fast moved the ship stern away from the dock as the lines loosened. This left only the bow line connected. The spring line doesn't hold it to the dock. The only thing holding the ship to the dock was the bowline and the hose. When the stern line fell off that allowed the stern to swing out from the dock I could not get on the ship and tell anyone what was going on. So I had to just stay there and wait until someone came out and saw what was happening. I don't remember what they were pumping Gasoline, fuel oil, diesel or what. But if it was gasoline and the line had broken I might have been in a bad spot. If it was bunker fuel that is like heavy crude and it would have been disastrous for the environment. In Puget Sound the tides run fast and the ship was broadside to the tide so it was putting a big strain on the hose that was securing the ship to the dock. I have all these years wondered what would have happened if it had broken. How long would it have take them before they came out and noticed they were pumping into Puget Sound. Only now have I thought that if the hose had broken the pumps would have changed their sound and maybe they would have caught it right away. But all these years I have had the willies thinking what would have happened if that hose had broken. I had a phone to the plant I think but not sure. No phone to the outside. It was at night and I was the only one on duty so no one was in the plant. I could only stand there and hope someone came out and found it.

Doyal.

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4 years in 3rd Inf in WW2 Go here My less heroic contribution. KE7PLR Established (born)Aug. 23, 1921