Ship Design

[Finkenwerder]

I never grasped the logic of deep tanks either side of the shaft tunnel on the Cora class. They were an absolute sod to clean and devilish hard to climb around in - access from the shaft tunnel. That said Bank Line made their money out of them I expect so I guess the rationale was there!

Having served in Ben Line (palm oil and/or latex) as a cadet where, on the later vessels, the tanks were stainless steel and all frames, longitudinals, brackets etc. were on the outside of the tanks, B.L. was a shock to the system. Cleaning stainless steel was a doddle compared with the caustic soda in old evaporated milk tins at various vertical intervals! Still life was much easier on the Cora class with coated tanks and fixed and flexible Butterworth/Gamlen machine wash systems, unless of course they parted company with the pipelines!

Ben Line of course, on fixed runs, employed "Wong's Virgins" in Singapore who did the tank cleaning by hand after rigging scaffolding and platforms inside the tanks. After discharge in Europe however, and if the tanks were to be used for outward cargo, it was down to the cadets and maybe some crew if you were lucky.

I asked the above of Captain Alistair Macnab, Sometime Chief Marine Superintendent for North America and his reply was:

The deeptanks on either side of the shaft tunnel on the Corabank Class were there because there was nothing else that was possible in this space. With two tanks on top of two tanks on top of two tanks for six deeptanks in all, the late Captain Gale wanted to give the outwards Gulf loading the facility of several tank capabilities and capacities for parcel bulk liquids. He even provided openings in the top four for loading non-liquid cargo if required but we always made sure that this was never put to the test and the tank lids remained firmly bolted down! Remember, parcel tankers were not common at the time these ships were conceived and smaller bulk liquids parcels to Australia were always being offered at good freight rates. It became one of the exclusive Bank Line service marks to be able to carry these although as time went on and bulk liquids became more varied, our standard tank coatings were not always suitable. That's why No.1 deeptank was only uncoated mild steel and could handle certain chemicals that the other ten tanks could not. At one time we talked about making one of Nos 4 or 5 deeptanks into a speciality tank but I don't think anything came of this.