North Sands. Yard number 715. In 1965. This ship was built on Doxford Engine Works account (by then part of the Doxford and Sunderland Shipbuilding and Engineering Company), to prove and demonstrate the prototype Doxford J type engine. Its predecessor, the P type first introduced in 1960 (M.V. Montana by Sir James Laing), was not a success. Both engines were designed by a team led by Percy Jackson and his initials were those used to identify these engines. The North Sands was one of a series of similar tankers built at the yard: British Commerce, Daphnella, Donacilla, were fitted with Sulzer engines, Trident had a Doxford 760J8 engine and North Sands had a 760J9 engine. The only other ship with a 760J9 was the Orenda Bridge from the same yard.
The North Sands became the Aeolus before becoming the Nedi (possibly the first name of the owner of Troodos shipping who I think was the father of the founder of Easyjet.
As the Aeolus on 24th August 1974 the ships engine room flooded to a depth of 57ft (17 metres) while at anchor and fully loaded and grounded outside New York harbour. The Doxford service engineers report said that water flooded through holes in the ships bottom then through double bottom cofferdam doors that had been removed at the time. The ship was trimmed by the head until the doors could be replaced and the engine room was drained on 11th September. The ship was then towed to Newport News on 14th October. Much of the engine was stripped down for examination and repair. All the engine holding down bolts were tightened and it required “approximately half a turn on each bolt”!
As the Nedi, a Doxford service engineer’s report of 12th December 1979 said “The writer has never come upon such an ill-kept, ill maintained engine room and experienced such a lack of spares as on this ship. In thirty years he has never been in such a dirty, filthy engine room. Not only is there a lack of spares, but also a lack of tools to do any maintenance. Work benches with broken down vices. How can engineers work under these conditions when even the most essential facilities are not working or available?” it was during that inspection that an engine room fire broke out, and had the writer not been present to raise the alarm, the consequences would have been serious. The incident “exposed the dangerous conditions under which the engine was operated.” The engine was said to be “one serious fire hazard.”
A subsequent report is even more damming.
The ship was broken up at Hungpau, China in October 1987. It seems that a ship that would have had so much attention when new died of neglect. It won’t be the only one !!
Has anyone a picture of it as NedI or Aeoluls?
I will post some pictures when I get the hang of reducing their size to 500kb

Thanks for such an informative first posting, fitter!

mv AEOLUS (ex North Sands)

Always dangerous to let the covers from the cofferdam open, unwatched ! (Liberian Flag!!!)




http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2 ... 14,3184827

Alfons

NORTH SANDS as AREOLUS again according:
THE DAILY REGISTER, Vol. 97, No 48, Shrewsbury, N.J., Monday Aug. 26 , 1974



Regards
Alfons

One of the engine problems as NORTH SANDS



Received from a DEFA member
The North Sands completed trials satisfactorily – indeed it completed the first full year satisfactorily.

The first period of service was with Doxford engineers on board running the ship on behalf of Doxfords.

The second year it was operated by “John I Jacobs shipping.” Mike Woodward stayed on the ship as Third Engineer.

The ship was outward bound and was just passing Las Palmas, when the crankcase oily mist detector alarm sounded.

(Good practice would have been to slow the ship down in order to allow the parts to slowly cool down. )
Instead, the ship was continued to be operated at full speed.

The second engineer opened the port window (as I explained that was fitted to the engine casing at about crosshead height) – this allowed oxygen rich air to pass into the crank chamber this gave rise to an immediate crankcase explosion – the second engineer was killed and Mike Woodward , who at the time was taking indicator cards on the camshaft platform was caught by the flame – he raised his arms to cover his face and was quite badly burned about his arms – apart from this he made a good recovery and was a member of DEFA for many years until his untimely death last year.

The reason why the oil mist detector alarmed was because a cross-head centre bearing pad had overheated
Signed as J.J.

Start the 76J9

Alfons

Nice Link, Alfons.

Most of us can provide the bare facts about a particular vessel but its great to get the addition behind the scenes information that can only be provided by someone with specialist knowledge.

Enjoying your posts.

magoonigal wrote:Nice Link, Alfons.

Most of us can provide the bare facts about a particular vessel but its great to get the addition behind the scenes information that can only be provided by someone with specialist knowledge.

Enjoying your posts.

Thanks for the kind words, but in comparison with the contributions from “fitter”, I know very little


North Sands, as AEOLUS



Alfons