The Mighty Minnie

On Sept 7, 1985 I joined the Minnesota in Long Beach.  Originally named Churubusco when built in 1943, she was renamed Minnesota in 1950 and jumboized to her current configuration in 1964.  She was bound for Gaviota, a port I wasn't familiar with.  It turned that out Gaviota was an offshore mooring in the Santa Barbara Channel, one of many offshore moorings that were part of the Minnie's bread and butter west coast runs. Other moorings we often called at were El Segundo, Port Hueneme and Estero Bay. California offshore moorings were new to me so on first Gaviota trip, I had to stand back and watch the bosun and deck gang do their magic hoisting and connecting the submarine hose.  The routine turned out to not be difficult but you always had to keep safety in mind.  Although I filled in as Master on the Rhode Island at one point, the Minnesota was to be my steady ship until Dec 29, 1988.  Ninety percent of our runs were from Long Beach to Estero Bay.  It was a 15 hour run each way and we usually spent around 15 hours loading San Ardo Crude at the mooring.  That put us in Long Beach at least once a week.  Long Beach certainly had changed since my days there on the Meadowbrook in 1965.  The infamous Pike had been replaced by urban sprawl.  At least the Twin Wheels stayed the same.  The steaks there were good and the beer cold and you could walk there in 15 minutes if you snuck through the fence and took the shortcut through the Weyerhauser terminal.

Estero Bay was a scenic port with Morro Rock being located not far from the mooring site.  Wildlife was plentiful.  It was not uncommon for a whale to come alongside and scratch against the ship, probably shedding barnacles or some other unwanted marine growth.   One time, while heaving up the anchor, a mutant starfish attached itself to the anchor chain.   It was about 6 inches in diameter and had 17 stubby arms.  It was so unusual looking that we stopped heaving and even the captain came up to the bow to see it.  Ramsay, our Jamaican born bosun, decided it was edible and bit off one of its arms.  It turned out not to be edible after all and he wound up spitting it out.

Another time, a small owl decided to hang out in the starboard hawsepipe.  When it came time to unmoor, he would ride up the chain until he was on deck then hop over the side, get back on the chain and ride it up through the hawsepipe again.  Much to our amusement, he did this several times over, treating it like a thrill ride.

In December of 1986, the Minnie was sent to the Hyundai Mipo shipyard in Ulsan, Korea for drydocking. I joined the ship there.a couple of days before Christmas.  At that time, there was only one Coast Guard inspector assigned to Korea.  He came aboard and announced that he was going on vacation until after New Years and that the shipyard was to do no work in the cargo tanks until he returned and had inspected the tanks himself.  It is normal for the USCG to inspect tanks and then write up repair requirements.  It became a problem because the shipyard personnel didn't understand.  As it happens, the Minnesota was the first American flagged ship to ever come to Mipo shipyard.  We were also the first steam ship to call there was well.  The shipyard superintendent assigned to us was the only attendee who spoke English and his English was very limited.  All communications with the work gangs had to go through him.  He didn't understand why I wouldn't let the workers start repairs in the tanks.  For the first week, he came to me every morning wanting to start welding in the tanks.  I finally gave in.  I decided to let them work in only one tank, #1 center.  And I told him that the USCG inspector would be angry and didn't know what actions he'd take.  So a bevy of welders went into #1 center and patch welded the many pits on the bottom.  When the USCG inspector returned from vacation, I explained the situation.  He took one look at the #1 center repairs and immediately said "Replace the bottom."  The shipyard superintendent was furious but had no grounds to stand on since he'd been warned on what might happen.

 Mighty Minnie in Hyundai Mipo drydock Jan 1987

      Mipo Shipyard Jan 1987                                                                Weight testing boom at Mipo 

We stayed in the yard for a month.  When it came time to sail, the Texaco repair rep advised us to return to California using the southernmost route we could to avoid bad weather.  He knew that the ship had sustained multiple tank fractures on the trans-Pacific voyage to the shipyard and didn't want a repeat of this on the way back.  But wouldn't you know, we received orders to proceed to Nikiski, Alaska to load for Portland, Oregon.  The marine office wouldn't listen to the advice of the repair rep.  There was a charter available in Nikiski and so Nikiski it was.  The captain even told the office that we didn't have the required amount of spare mooring ropes for the Nikiski tidal range (we did) in an effort to get the orders changed but the office countered that they would rent them and they'd be waiting for us on the dock.

The North pacific is not the place to be in February.  We were lucky enough to stay between storms on the voyage to Alaska but still managed to take our fair share of seas on deck.  The foredeck steam pipeline being exposed to the weather turned orange and bled rust all over the main deck.  We had no steam line paint on board so the captain suggested we coat the pipeline with bunker fuel as had been done in the "old days."   I was very hesitant to do this and put it off for a few days until I was "reminded" to get it done.  So I had the deck crew slosh bunker fuel on the pipeline as directed and it actually looked good for a couple of days, until a storm caught up with us and we started taking seas on deck again.  The bunker fuel on the pipelines hadn't set up and was easily washed off by the seas, streaking the already orange-stained deck black.  We did not have any degreaser on board, being that it had not been available in Ulsan.  It turned out to not be available in Nikiski either.  The foredeck of the Minnie looked awful.  It was embarrassing to see such a clean ship with rust and fuel streaked all over the deck.

The loading in Nikiski was slow.  Due to the high temperature of the cargo and the cold outside temperature, strict loading restrictions were required and followed.  On the loaded voyage to Portland, we encountered a fierce storm causing the ship to roll significantly.  A loud banging ensued coming from the starboard side almost directly under the midships house.  It was obvious that something in the tanks had carried away.  We thought it might be a ladder.  When the storm subsided, I was able to go out on deck and ullage the tanks in question, 2C and 2S.  2S had been topped off at 4'6" and 2C had been slightly slack upon completion of loading.  When I took the ullages, they were both the same level which meant it was a bulkhead that had caused the banging, not a loose ladder.

We were lucky enough to have good weather for the remainder of the voyage to Portland.  After discharging the cargo, we proceeded to anchor to wash all the tanks and go right into the Swan Island shipyard there.  When we were able to actually enter 2C tank, we found that the longitudinal bulkhead between 2C and 2S had carried away from the underside of the deck and a vertical crack had made its way 20' down the bulkhead, allowing the section to swing like a barn door.  We stayed in the yard for five days while they repaired the bulkhead and welded up a few tank fractures that had developed during the voyage.

So, did the company save money by sending the ship to a foreign yard for repairs?  Probably not in this case since whatever money was saved in the shipyard in Korea was probably spent in the shipyard in Portland.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time on the Minnie and was sad to learn that she was being scrapped.  I was fortunate enough to sail with some really good seafarers there including Ramsay, Robbie, Red, Domingo (Baby needs new shoes), Hans (Kai Wo), Ali and Tony the Pumpman.  She was scrapped in Bangkok in 1989.