Seafaring Memories
of Dublin Shipping By George Humphries
The Jones Group were a large group of companies involved in the oil transport business. This began in the early 1970s on the River Lee in County Cork.
Celtic Coasters was set up to carry the oil from The Whitegate Oil Refinery up the river to Cork city and this was a thriving business, creating employment for local people.
One such ship I remember seeing was the 'Celtic Lee', a lovely little oil tanker. There were several of these ships trading on the run up and down the River Lee.
Herbert Dennis was a well known Cork City businessman who, I believe, was involved in the formation of Dublin Shipping along with John Jones.
Some of the first ships that they acquired were called the 'Breda J' after John Jones's wife Breda and 'Herbert D' after Herbert Dennis. These ships carried heavy fuel oil from Milford Haven in Dyfed in Wales back to various ports around the Irish Coast.
The next ships the company acquired were called 'Rathmines' and 'Rathgar' (not after the musical society I might add). These ships were second-hand and took over from the other ships when they were decommissioned.
The work was there and the company expanded with the addition of more tonnage. The next ones were the 'M T Rathowen', an ex-Swedish ship and the 'Rathdown', a grand tidy little ship.
The company operated these four ships for a number of years and was involved in the bitumen trade and the 'Rathowen' was a specialized carrier and had some lucrative contracts.
The 'Rathowen' was an ageing vessel and, like anything that is in constant use, was giving trouble. It was decided to replace her with a new building from Japan.
Captain John Wilde Crosbie, a local gentleman, took the 'M T Rathnew', a brand new 3,000 ton tanker on her maiden voyage from the builder's yard in Kagoshima in Japan. The builders were six months late in delivering this new ship. She sailed from Japan in 1978 and her next port was Singapore to take on bunkers before making her way to the Suez Canal.
She then went to Huelva in Southern Spain to load her first cargo of lube oil for discharge in the German port city of Hamburg. Next stop was Milford Haven to load petroleum for her homeport of Dublin.
'M T Rathnew' was built to carry bitumen. A time charter was secured to El Brega of Tripoli in Libya. It was very lucrative for the company and she was chartered for three years.
The port of loading was Tarragona in Spain and I joined her in 1981. It was a three-day jog across the Mediterranean to Tripoli, Ras Misurata, Benghazi. It took a week to complete a round trip. We had an excellent time out there, plenty of good weather and the pay and conditions were very good.
Early in 1983 the charter was finished and we were laid up in Malta with no work. She came back to Irish waters for a brief period before going to the Cuban Coast, where a contract was secured with the ministry of the interior in the Cuban government for 6 months.
On a few occasions we had to be sent to Jamiaca or Key West for stores and repairs as the situation in Cuba was dire under the Castro regime. After returning to the UK for repairs, she spent the following nine months running around the Irish and UK Coasts before the company secured a long-term time charter with the Indonesian state oil company Pertimina carrying bitumen from Cilicap in Java to all little ports in this vast country.
Other ships of the company's fleet included 'M T Rathmore', sold in 1983, a beautiful ship of about 5,000 tons and 'M T Rathlynn', a clean oil carrier which they bought in 1980, a great ship on which I served.
'Rathkyle' was the next addition to the fleet and was by far the biggest ship that the company had at 15,000 tons. She was employed in the carriage of clean oil along with the Rathlynn and they had some very good charters, mainly running in the Baltic to Norway and the Faeroe Islands.
The company were on the lookout for additional tonnage but nothing suitable could be found. They decided on a new building, hence 'M T Rathrowan'.
Conditions on these tankers were very good during my time with the company from 1982 to 1987. Relief was ten weeks on, five weeks off with full pay when we were trading in the Mediterranean and six weeks on and three weeks off while on the coast.
Overtime was always plentiful and the food was probably the best to be served in any ship anywhere. They always gave a generous allowance and with the ships in and out of ports every few days, fresh stores were always available to us.
'M T Rathmoy' was the last ship I finished up on in 1987 and the company was doing extremely well. Ships were running all the time and to my knowledge it remained that way until the late 1990s. But the Company directors were made an offer from Gearbulk to take over the company and it was a proposition they couldn't refuse and this sadly took place on 28th March 1998.
