LETTERS | Tonnage hatch or dunnage hatch?

In response to the recent article on ship tonnages, etc.

Well do I remember the tonnage hatches aboard some tween-deckers. Sometimes this was quite incorrectly known as the dunnage hatch, maybe because the space was frequently used for storing wooden dunnage, which at the time, was not being used for cargo separation purposes, etc.

I also recall, as an apprentice, having to take down or erect a number of doors in the tween-decks. With the doors removed the tween-deck space from the collision bulkhead to the after-peak bulkhead became exempt from the vessel’s gross tonnage (well, something like that).

I also remember that there was no special stowage facility for the removed doors since they were just lashed to the ship’s frames or the transverse bulkheads. The removal process usually occurred whilst on passage to the first loading port after having discharged a bulk cargo, usually grain.

Clive Spencer

Shipmaster (rtd)

New Zealand

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