The End of Trasatlántica: NIPSA and the Ship 'Ville du Havre'

To the severe crisis affecting the Trasatlántica Company in the 1980s, due among other causes to the sharp rise in fuel prices, the disappearance of freight conferences and pools, and the emergence of new extremely competitive companies like MSC and Maersk, one must add certain misguided policies and decisions by its management team.

A first measure to compensate for the inaction of the current government, in response to the repeated requests from the maritime sector of the Second Registry of the Canary Islands, was the creation in June 1985 of the Panamanian International Shipping Company (NIPSA). With the new “pirate” company, largely composed of the same executives from Trasatlántica, it opened the doors to a promising future that, with fortunate crews and tax reductions or evasion, sought to find solutions to its serious problems, all with the consent of the INI, to which the Company belonged.

The implementation of the new measures had as its most significant decision the purchase and registration under a flag of convenience of the ship “Battersea,” which was under judicial custody in the port of Livorno, subject to an embargo order by the Italian government and was acquired at auction for the amount of 1.2 billion old pesetas.

At the beginning of March, I received instructions from the technical management of Trasatlántica to take charge of its reactivation, commissioning, flag change, and renaming of the new acquisition. The challenge, for which we had twenty days, was quite astonishing considering the complex characteristics of the ship and the conditions in which it had been after several months of inactivity. With no crew on board and much of the technical information missing, the mission was complex. For this, I had the invaluable collaboration of Captain Manuel Coello, who had ample experience in difficult challenges, and a recently hired chief engineer at the expense of NIPSA.

When we arrived on board, we were greeted by a judicial guardian who was waiting to hand us the access keys, while informing us that on board, apart from him, there was no one else. We first headed to the emergency generator with the intention of starting it up to have sufficient lighting that would allow us to access and conduct a first visual inspection, starting with the engine room as it was the part that initially concerned us the most. The first inconvenience we encountered was when we found that due to the long period of inactivity, the batteries were completely discharged, so we had to quickly acquire others, which, since it was a weekend, we did at a gas station.

Once the new batteries were installed, we saw how several red lights lit up on the emergency generator's alarm panel, and its engine showed no intention of starting. With a certain disappointment, we looked at each other, and with the help of flashlights, we removed the control relays of the alarm and engine protection system from their bases and checked that they were not functioning properly, likely due to the long period of inactivity. On the desk of the chief engineer, we proceeded to unlock and grease each of the relays; when we reassembled them and pressed the start button, !eureka....! the ship began to light up.

We began the inspection and commissioning of the sophisticated vessel from the engine room. Step by step, we reviewed and tested the operation of each and every element of the plant, starting with the auxiliary groups and ending with the propulsion system, which consisted of two Pielstick four-stroke engines with 9,000 HP each. After a week of hard work and not a few surprises, we achieved the goal of starting and checking the operation of all elements and equipment in a rather complex engine room.

Once we finished in the engine room, we moved to the deck, where a similarly complex set of cranes and mooring and anchoring machinery awaited us. Meanwhile, Captain Coello was taking care of everything related to navigation equipment and systems. To carry out all the aforementioned tasks without any prior knowledge of the ship, the challenge of those days was impossible to forget.While all this was happening, I couldn't help but think about what type of lines, out of the six that Trasatlántica was then covering, this ship would fit into, given that its characteristics did not match the type of cargo handled by the company.

The next part of the adventure was the change of flag and name of the ship, with all that it entailed, both in administrative procedures and inspections and recognitions. As is often the case in these situations, the classification society played a special role, first as a classification society and then as a representative of the country of the new flag to issue the new statutory certificates of the ship. This matter of the “double hat” always sparked much curiosity in me, as it sometimes puts the involved inspectors in the difficult and unenviable position of being both judges and parties. Today it is something normal and usual, but at that time it was somewhat shocking to those of us who had always sailed under serious flags.

After twenty days of hard work, it was communicated to Madrid that the ship was ready and available to sail, pending only the arrival of the crew on board. The issue of crew hiring was something that had been managed with secrecy and a certain hermeticism from the central offices. I was informed by the personnel department that shortly a crew recommended by the technical management, of Honduran origin, would board.

Indeed, all members who would complete the crew were received on board, and after their reception, their corresponding qualifications and certificates were requested. Upon checking the presented documents, I was struck by both the content and their presentation. The first one checked was the one for the person who would occupy the position of first officer, consisting of a paper with the letterhead of the Port Captaincy of Puerto Cortés, stating: Mr. so-and-so can serve as first officer on a ship of..., followed by all the characteristics of the now-renamed “Ville du Havre.” Only the name of the ship was missing, and the certificate was signed by “the captain of the Port of Puerto Cortés”: several stamps and colorful seals completed and validated the certificate; the rest of the assigned crew members, in accordance with the position to be occupied, showed similar documents issued by the same authority, documents that, being issued by a sovereign country and a signatory of international treaties on the matter, were completely valid to sail under a flag of convenience.

That same day, while visiting the radio officer at his station, I found him manipulating an oscilloscope, to which he had connected one end of a coaxial cable to one of its terminals, while the other end, which he had taken out through the porthole, he was moving up and down and from side to side; I asked him what he was doing or what kind of check he intended to perform with that maneuver, and I received the surprising response that he was checking if the “television” worked.

After the aforementioned events, along with other similar ones that I was informed about by the chief engineer related to his department's personnel, I immediately contacted the central offices and informed them that the personnel sent might be useful for operating a river fishing vessel with sail rigging, but not for crewing a ship of the characteristics of the “Ville du Havre.”

I was informed by the personnel department, which I logically thought had made the hires, that it was a matter managed and decided by the company's technical management. I quickly contacted the person in charge and informed him of the situation, who seemed surprised by the information received. I was suggested that through our agency in Livorno, we pay for the days spent on board and, after providing them with return tickets, proceed with their repatriation.

We gathered them all to inform them, not without some regret as they were very modest people, of the instructions received from Madrid and the reasons that had motivated them. Most of them understood and took the situation to heart, sighing with some relief and accepting it, especially the “officers” team, while the rest of the crew filed a complaint.

We received an immediate visit from the ITF representative, a captain of the Italian merchant navy, who, after showing the logical interest and concern for the crew members, was informed of the causes that had led to the difficult situation for all; the ITF inspector could not help but smile at some of the things he had just heard, only to immediately say that the fault, he understood, was not with the Hondurans, but rather with whoever had mistakenly hired them. Without explicit recognition for feeling secondhand embarrassment, I completely agreed with the union representative's reasoning and we agreed on a fair compensation for each of them, which was paid before they were returned to their country.

After a few days of waiting, I received information that a new crew had been hired through an agency and would be sent on board immediately. During the same conversation, I was informed that the ship had been chartered to CGM for one of its lines to Africa, as once the purchase was made and the ship's characteristics analyzed by those responsible for its operation, it was concluded that a ro-ro type ship, although also equipped for general cargo, did not fit the needs of the traffic department, as the new challenges and strong competition indicated that for the type of lines covered by the Company, the necessary type of ship was beginning to be the pure container ship...

A week later, the new crew, now of Romanian origin, arrived. On March 23, 1990, under the instructions and programming of the charterer, we set sail. I stayed on board for several days to check the behavior of the ship and its crew. During those days, everything developed with a certain normality. In the port of Marseille, as the first destination, some adjustments and corrections were made to the injection system of both main engines, as well as a thorough cleaning of the bilges, work for which a specialized company was hired.

The captain and the chief engineer, among many other functions, continued analyzing and trying to familiarize themselves with an unknown crew, most of whom did not speak Spanish or English. Once the assigned mission was completed, I disembarked in the French port.

- May nothing happen to you..., was my farewell to both after a grateful and long hug.

- And may you see it, Juan..., was their response.

As I descended the gangway, I felt exhausted and burdened with doubts about that adventure that had just begun.

And so it happened, and so I tell you.

Photo: Andreas Keller