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SCH founders: Frank, Micky and Tony.
THREE dockers with 114 years of service between them are to retire from Southampton Cargo Handling.
Frank Orchard, Micky Taylor and Tony Noyce are among the ‘founding fathers’ of stevedore SCH.
The three men, all from Southampton, have handled every cargo imaginable since 1968, including elephants, tigers, helicopters, bullet trains, earthmovers and Rolls-Royces destined for super-rich oil sheiks.
Among the highlights was the loading of two famous cruiseships that played a role in the Falklands War; Canberra and QE2.
Both vessels were requisitioned as troop ships in early 1982, with dockers assisting the military in preparing the ships and then unloading them on their return to their home port.
The trio were three of the original 125 dockers who reinvested redundancy packages to form SCH 18 years ago. SCH has a directly-employed workforce of more than 100 people and services up to 580 ships a year at Southampton.
Come rain or shine
METEOROLOGISTS have an unappreciated job. People are often unhappy about their weather forecast and meteorologists seem to take the blame if the weather turns for the worse.
On rare occasions, though, the audience highly values the work, as Germany’s weather service has just experienced.
One of its traditional services is to offer forecasts for ships around the globe and provide assistance on alternative routes where possible.
The tanker Seatrout, owned by German Tanker Shipping, was heading for Houston when it asked for advice from the weather service on the day that Gustav was due to hit the US Gulf.
Duly advised, the vessel made good its escape from the path of the storm, which prompted master Christian Kuntzsch to send an email of thanks to the service.
The latter was so surprised by this appreciation that it immediately made the news available to the press.
Season’s greetings
WE WILL know next week whether the Baltic will give Christmas back to the market by reporting indices, spot prices and the forward curve between December 24 and January 2.
A conclave of the ‘shadowy’ FIFC will decide how to answer the howls of protest from hedge funds that they won’t be able to mark to market for a full, auditable year if the Baltic takes a holiday for Turkey and pudding.
The Baltic has defended itself as robustly as ever, pointing out that poor data is hardly a good advert for the market as a whole and that it might be better to produce no data than numbers of questionable quality.
A source also whispers that the protests might be given a more sympathetic ear if the complainants were paid-up members of the Baltic...
Mission possible
PAID-up Baltic members past and present pitched up on Wednesday night for a Maritime London reception for students of the Copenhagen Business School Shipping MBA programme, who were completing a week’s field trip in London.
It’s a welcome reminder of shipping’s place in the maritime world that there is enough to occupy these keen learners for a week, and encouraging that they look to the course as a leg-up to working in the London market.
Next week sees a Maritime London delegation head to Moscow with the Lord Mayor on another trade mission to raise the profile, attract new members and sell the benefits of the city to overseas companies and investors.
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