For five years, I sailed under the colours of Blue Star Ship Mgt Ltd, first as a cadet, then for a year as 3rd Mate. I had good times, I had some frankly awful times. One of the worst was on the Trojan Star, back in 1981. We had hauled bananas from Tenerife to Europe, Central America to US, when we were diverted to New Zealand for the hallal trade to the Gulf. None of us were looking forward to The Gulf as it was known. It was, for the most part, a pain in the arse. Anyway, we made it through the Panama Canal and were doing nicely across the Pacific when we lost control of the rudder.

Once we realised our situation, various wacky ideas were suggested, mostly by the Liverpool Office. Another Blue Star ship was "roped" in - which was pointless as Merchant ships don't carry the right equipment. Then someone had the bright idea of "lassooing" the rudder and controlling it via the derrick-winches on the aft-housing. This was mad. Here are two pictures involving the Reefer Engineer (top) and the Mate (bottom) wherein they are trying to "lassoo" the rudder.

This is what we ended up with. Total madness.

In the end, head office saw sense and a tug was hired. The tug arrived at our postion at night so for it to locate us, we had to fire a parachute flare. Now that was fun. The Raumanga crew were great - solid professionals - and good to work with. The main part of the bad weather had passed, even so, our progress was sometimes backwards rather than forwards. We were at sea so long, we ran out of booze, although I seem to recall rumours to the effect that the usual quartet had their supply. We managed on shorts until that run out. We were desperate!

Finally, in dry-dock, we started the serious business of inspecting the hull.

The Trojan Star from the bow

Close-ups of the rudder, including the bit that caused us the problems.

Then we had to take the rudder off and ship it for repair. The New Zealand dockies were great.

Then the ship was repaired. I was probably drinking too much to notice anything. Hang on, no, I was transferred to the Act 7 and shipped home. Boo!