1964
M.V. Dunard
St. Andrews Shipping Co.
Motor cargo ship
A short winter voyage from Savona in Italy to Poti in Soviet Georgia, and home to Tees-side.
A drawing of the type — no photograph of her has turned up yet. Have one?
1 of 2 passages
15th January 1964 — 22nd January 1964
Savona → Poti
2,135 miles · 7 days at sea
BOUND
SAILED SAVONA 12 noon 15th JAN BOUND POTI
Every passage he logged in her. Press play to follow her through, or tap a port to see every time he called there.
- Log entries
- 6
- Ports
- 4
- Nautical miles
- 6,210
- Days at sea
- 23
Her longest passage in the log ran from Poti to Middlesbro' — 4,075 miles, 16 days at sea.
The log
1 Jan 1964 to 13 Feb 1964
January 1964
- 1 Jan 19648pm
- 22 Jan 1964noon
- 26 Jan 196410am
February 1964
- 11 Feb 196411pm
- 13 Feb 19646am
Arrived Glasgow
ARRIVED GLASGOW 6 am 13th FEB
What was happening
Background written by the family, not from the logbook — but it explains a good deal of what is in it.
1954–1971
No telephone, no news
There was no way to call home. Letters were sent ahead to the agent at the next port, and if the ship was diverted the mail chased her round the world for months. A man could sail knowing his wife was expecting, and learn he had a child from a telegram handed up a gangway in another hemisphere.
1954–1971
Two years was a normal voyage
Foreign-going Articles could run for up to two years, and often did. David's longest unbroken spell in this logbook runs seventeen months, from June 1960 to November 1961 aboard the Scotstoun. Leave came at the end of it, not during.
1960–1971
The ships get very much bigger
In the 1950s a large tanker carried around 16,000 tons. By the mid-1960s the new turbine tankers carried three and four times that, and they were built too big for the Suez Canal to take them fully laden. Ports had to be rebuilt to match: Europoort was dug out of the sea off Rotterdam, and Kharg Island and Khor al Amaya were built out into deep water offshore.
In the log: David moves from the 1956 Norscot to the Naess ships, and the ports change with them — Europoort, Kharg, Khor al Amaya and Ras Tanura take over the log.
1964–1965
The long way round, by choice
A very large tanker could pass through Suez empty but not full. So she would load in the Gulf, steam all the way round the Cape of Good Hope to discharge in Europe or the Caribbean, and then come back light through the Canal. It added around 4,000 miles and three weeks to every laden passage.
In the log: In 1964 the Naess Spirit twice passes through Suez in ballast, then makes her three long hauls between the Gulf, Trinidad and Rotterdam the other way, round the Cape.
1954–1971
The map keeps changing
The place names in this log are the ones David used, and many of them have since changed. Bombay is Mumbai, Madras is Chennai, Bône is Annaba, Bougie is Béjaïa, Ceylon is Sri Lanka. He sailed through the end of one world map and into another.