Walking Back
Big Time Sailings Change Cayman
Will Jackson
It is often said that the Cayman Islandsfirst step toward development had to do with tourism; that isnot quite true. By 1960 when tourism began to take on in GrandCayman, already there were a little under a thousand seamen employedwith the oil tankers, National Bulk Carriers of New York beingthe major shipping company of the day.
Never in the history of these islands wasthere so much cash circulating on the local scene as during thosetwo decades when the Bulk Company as well as some smaller companiesoperated their ships with as many men as could be had from theislands.
It all started with a few T2 Tankers whichMr. Ludwig, a struggling immigrant of German parentage thoughtto establish a shipping business on borrowed money.
Having bought a couple of war surplus, hegot charters for them hauling crude oil from Venezuela to partsof the United States. The budding company first attempted to obtaincrews in Jamaica, but soon found he needed good seamen which theJamaicans were not. Mr. Southwell the recruiting officer for thecompany discovered in Jamaica, some men from Cayman Brac to whomhe was introduced and hired them. Cayman Islands seamen and theirfame had been made known to National Bulk, thus starting a widespread shipping of men from Grand Cayman and Cayman Brac. It maybe truly said that the new Cayman life started with Cayman Brac.
One man, Mr. Cyril Ritch, who was shippedin Jamaica soon merited special favours with the company and wastransferred from an officer on a ship to being a shipping agentin the New York office. Thus it was that every Cayman Islanderyoung or old who wanted a job had one, subject to a medical examination.Mr. Ritch soon became Personnel Manager in charge of the hiringand replacement of men, a job which he fulfilled very well.
There was one great difficulty with therecruiting of men from the islands in those early days, that oftransportation from the islands to New York. There was no airlineflying the route to the USA and very limited sea passengers spacewas available. However, by the middle of the fifties a littleairport had been built in Grand Cayman and two airlines were flyingnon-stop to Miami the 'Lacsa' from Costa Rica and the BWIAfrom the Eastern Caribbean.
This was one great stride toward developmentboth for the seamen as well as for the introduction of a touristbusiness in the island.
Year by year National Bulk added to thefleet of tankers, larger and more modern ships until they wereowning some of the world's largest tankships, as well as largeore carriers. Then the island could produce only a small percentageof the personnel they needed to operate with. The shipping officelocated in George Town was operated by Mr. Bertie Panton, withMiss Gwen Bush who was the seamen's darling, doing everythingpossible to help the men, as some were very simple-minded to beginwith; but she helped everyone to whatever extent they needed herhelp.
The objective of this article is to tellof the fast growth of The Bulk Company, who started with a coupleof T2 tankers and quickly moved up to bulk ships such as BulkStar, Bulk Petrol, Bulk Trader, Ulysses and yet others in thatcategory.
The next step was from the Bulk ships tothe Petro ships which were larger hulls and carried many morebarrels of oil. They were built primarily for the Persian Gulftrade, they were such as, the Petro Sea, Petro Emperor, Petroleneand on and on it went in petro names. But the company still sawthe need of yet larger ships and so they set about building giantSuper tankers which they termed as Universe Tank Ships among thelargest afloat in those days.
The Universe Commander, Universe Leaderand Universe Defiance these were all great names and special hullsto live aboard of. The Ore Chief and the Ore Transport were giantore ships but there were others that were smaller in the ore fleet,yet they were great and safe ships. On all of these large ships,tankers and ore carriers, it can be said that Caymanians filledhigh offices from time to time. As a result of a school startedby the company we could boast of Caymanian masters and mates ofall ratings. There were engineers from the ratings of chiefs ondown through the ranks to third engineers, pumpmen, oilers andfiremen. There were many chief stewards and cooks who were Caymanians.Well, whoever was required to operate a ship could always be foundamong Caymanian seamen.
The Caymanian men it could always be saidproved themselves to be, not just good seamen, but moreso menof good behaviour and character, performing their jobs honourably.Keystone, a Canadian company also operating tank ships came tothe islands seeking men as did also the Mathesion Company. Thesewere all small companies as such, but had a good many Caymanianmen employed with them. Never was there a shortage of jobs forseamen during the decades of the fifties through the seventies.
It was during those years that a transformation,and a recycling took place in a big way throughout the islandsof Grand Cayman and Cayman Brac. Soon the old landscapes all beganto change. Most of the old time dwellings were no longer wherethey used to be. Wattle and daubed, thatch houses disappearedfrom the scene, giving place to blocks, zinc and glass. Glasswindows and louvre doors took the places of the old wooden onesthe fathers used to know. Horses and donkeys soon found themselvesout of jobs to perform because motor cars and trucks dominatedthe scene. Where once the burden bearers were seen tied two orthree in a single yard, bright and shiny motorcars could be seenglistening in the moonlight, or in the early morning sunlight.Many of them were only pleasure toys while the young men remainedat home between voyages at sea. This was how far the islands haddeveloped in only a couple of decades as seamen spent their moneyfor the betterment of their once poverty stricken homeland.
The island began to take on recognitionby the outside world when in the fifties, the Barclays Bank openedits doors for business in George Town. The islands were givenone big thrust toward financial improvements, not only was therea safe place to leave one's cash, but when money was needed smallloans could be obtained from the bank according to what securitiesthe person possessed. Anyway things really began to change towardhaving a modern Cayman to be called home. Several men who hadnot cared to enter the service of National Bulk had been hiredwith a Dutch oil company, LARGO working the Venezuela Caribbeanarea. They were mostly shuttles from the Maracaibo Lake to Aruba,Curacao and Trinidad. The Cayman Islands men were known everywherefor their good seamanship.
The Cayman Islands were best publicizedto the world in general, by those seamen who posted letters frompost offices all over, many postal clerks who had never heardthe name of Cayman called before. A gentleman in a post officein Sumatra asked me if Grand Cayman was in the South Seas or wasit in Canary Islands. He had never heard or seen the name before,so seeing a world map, I showed him a pencil dot in the WesternCaribbean marked Grand Cayman. My letters of course was markedvia Miami, Florida and you know those letters were delivered inCayman about ten days after being posted in Sumatra.
The seamen's mailing problems were alwayssolved by mailing via Kingston, Jamaica or Miami, Florida. Well,after all we were dealing with the place that time forgot, orthe world never heard about in those days.
Nevertheless, those once barren rocks sosecluded, which the seamen called home were budding all over withbeautiful development flowers that would become the flower gardenfor much of the world to envy.
The Caymanian seamen had, a great many ofthem, travelled the world over, seeing the good and the bad ofhuman habitations and many had concluded that their littler cornerwas really the best square footage in the big world, therefore,they had gone all out to let their dollars work for them in securinglittle monuments of which to be proud all their days.
So we conclude happily in our minds thatbig time sailings brought about a monumental change in the CaymanIslands that will always be appreciated by those who survivedthe last half of the twentieth century.
We, the seamen, paved and paid the way tosuccess in the homeland by the grace of our wonderful Lord.
Will Jackson
Seafarer and noted
Caymanian Historian