Thank you Frankmchugh1958 for sharing your memories of her. I love finding this little gems of history/stories on this ships as I look around at the ships.

Thanks for the story, Frank. I have inspected several SD14s (and one SD15; "Palm Islands") during my 26 years as a Port State Control Officer. They were very high quality ships, but like so many others, they were swept away by containerization.

In 1978 as an apprentice shipwright at Austin and Pickersgill at Southwick Sunderland. I was working with the chargehand shipwright John Richardson and we had to go to the Middle dock on the river Tyne to put the name on an sd14 that had been launched and completed without an owner. When we got to the quayside I was surprised to see it was ship no. 1377 (the 1st mk 4 ) sd14 that I had had the good luck to go out on sea trials with as an apprentice with a shipwright called Sammy Brown. I cant remember the exact date of the sea trials but I think it was around about the middle of January 1979. We had to meet the ship at the quayside of the then closed Greenwells dry dock at Sunderlands south dock at 7am. She lay alongside the quay in all her new paint looking absolutely fantastic. As we left the port of Sunderland she sounded her foghorn as a salute to her builders and the people of Sunderland, I would say it was quite a moving experience but this was overshadowed by being nearly frightened to death by the noise of the horn, we were standing about 5yards in front of it. As we went out into the North sea it got steadily rougher and rougher and by the time we got to do the measured mile about 5 miles off Newbiggen it was snowing and visibility was severly resricted. You can't imagine the look on our faces when we were informed that for insurance purposes we had to be present on the forcastle when the anchors were tested. I will never forget walking up the deck to the forend and seeing the waves breaking over the forcastle . It was like something out of the movie THE CRUEL SEA. The snow by now was absolutely lashing down and dont you just know it we got an anchor stuck on the bottom and could not get it back up. when ,after 45 minutes, it did finally come up it had some sort of tele-communications cable wrapped around it and this was threatening to tangle around the propellor. After a lot of swinging around we finally got the mysterious cable through the fairlead and chopped through it with an axe. the loose end returned to port with us still swinging from the anchor flukes. To say I was pleased to get off the forecastle is the understatement of the century. On our return to port we had to go back to the Tyne ,there was no tugs available to take us in so we had to lie a mile off Souter Point to wait for a tug. We were waiting 2 hours in the middle of a very heavy swell and I am still to this day amazed that I was'nt seasick . We steamed up the Tyne to the Middle Docks and tied up alongside about 8.45 pm. I can tell you that I skipped down the gangway onto terra firma . I can tell you now this cured me of any ambition I had ever had about a life at sea . I did'nt know then that about 6 months later I would meet ship 1377 again when were sent to mark her name on her as she stood at the quayside. EMPROS . As I sit writing this I have broad smile when I remember my time ,working on her during her building, fitting out and her sea trials ,and I have to admit I can't help looking back at all those priceless memories she left me with. Thank you for posting her photo . I hope you enjoy sharing my memories of her and a fantastic shipyard.