Mumbai Soujourn

We have some what settled down in, Andheri West, our sojourn in Mumbai. In the meantime, my wife had made some friends in the same floor of the building and they were our neighbors.  Deviyani and Ambesh lived in the adjoining apartment. They had two little sons. On the same floor, right opposite to us was Anupama and Baldev and, they had three daughters of the age group between ten years and sixteen years.

Both the men were business people and they left home very early and returned very late in the night. Both these families were vegetarians. The friendship between wives had developed to such warm depths that almost every day we used to get one dish of food cooked by them. I met the men only on Sundays and, that too in the garden area of the building.  

During the first few months, we made it a habit to visit our friends in Bandra on Friday and Saturday nights.

On some Friday evenings, we had company; five to six of the Sri Lankans studying for the second Mates and my batch mates visited us at Andheri. My wife being the only female did not have a problem cooking because many of the younger students took turns and helped her in the kitchen.

They had very late dinner and returned to their boarding houses, in Bombay Central and in Chembur.

It was good company, all the way.

Sinking of M.V. DERBYSHIRE on September 09, 1980

When we look at maritime disasters and loss of lives at sea; from RMS Titanic to more recent ones, such as that of “Costa Concordia”, for some reason or the other, my thoughts always drift to that of M.V. Derbyshire.  

Derbyshire was launched in late 1975 and entered service in June 1976, as the last ship of the Bridge-class combination carrier, originally named Liverpool Bridge. Liverpool Bridge and En

glish Bridge (later Worcestershire) were built by Seabridge for Bibby Line. The ship was laid up for two of its four years of service life.^[

In 1978, Liverpool Bridge was renamed Derbyshire, the fourth vessel to carry the name in the company's fleet. On 11 July 1980, on what turned out to be the vessel's final voyage, Derbyshire left Sept Isles, Canada, her destination being Kawasaki, Japan. Derbyshire was carrying a cargo of 157,446 tonnes of iron ore.

On 9 September 1980, Derbyshire hove-to in Typhoon Orchid some 230 miles from Okinawa, and was overwhelmed by the tropical storm killing all aboard. Total loss of lives was 44 including two women. Derbyshire never issued a Mayday distress message.

The search for Derbyshire commenced on 15 September 1980 and was called off six days later when no trace of the vessel was found, and it was declared lost. Six weeks after Derbyshire sank, one of the vessel's lifeboats was sighted by a Japanese tanker.^[

In June 1994, the wreck of Derbyshire was found at a depth of 4 km, spread over 1.3 km. An additional expedition spends over 40 days photographing and examining the debris field looking for evidence of what sank the ship. Ultimately it was determined that waves crashing over the front the ship had sheared off the covers of small ventilation pipes near the bow. Over the next 30+ hours, seawater had entered through the exposed pipes into the forward section of the ship, causing the bow to slowly ride lower and lower in the water. Eventually, the bow was completely exposed to the full force of the rough waves which caused the massive hatch on the first cargo hold to buckle inward allowing hundreds of tons of water to enter in moments. As the ship started to sink, the second, then third hatches also failed dragging the ship underwater. As the ship sank, the water pressure caused the ship to be twisted and torn apart by implosion.