Not All Plane Sailing Part I

After a brief holiday on my return from Seattle I went off to Liverpool to await the arrival of the Jetfoil. There were only a few of us as those without previous Jet Turbine experience went on a 2-week course at DDA in Chicago. The first task was to ensure the safe removal of the Jetfoil from the deck of the giant cargo ship, certainly an interesting operation, especially in view of the publicity that the affair was creating as the craft would reduce the journey time by 60%. The next few weeks were spent on training both the 'On Board' crew and Maintenance Staff prior to the Inaugural Crossing between Dublin and Liverpool on 25 April 1980. Early on the Maintenance Staff said that 'They would not take instructions' from me as I was not in a Union. I made my views plain as to such an action but realised the significance of the situation. My mind was quickly made up when the firm informed me I could join 'any' union and even though I was 'Salaried' I would receive overtime and call out payments as part of a very attractive financial package.

The Jetfoil operated out of Dublin from a purpose built centre on the bank of the river Liffey, about a 5 minutes walk from both the main Bus and Railway Stations. The maintenance was 'shore based', and carried out from 2200 - 0700 hrs seven days a week. Each of the 2 shifts worked 4 nights on and 4 nights off and I was responsible for the continued running of the craft during the day for my 4 day shift period, including any problems which the ' On Board Engineer' (Flight Eng) could not fix. Alas, especially for the first year, my sleep was often interrupted by urgent phone calls. Usually the phone consultation was sufficient but many a time saw me heading for Dublin or Liverpool. To make matters worse I was 1 of the only 2 divers (I had trained a local professional diver on the requirements) and although all the routine under water maintenance was carried out on my shift, I had to attend all emergency call out problems, mainly to clear FOD ingested into the water pumps! Each pump passed up to 50,000 gallons of water a minute so you can imagine what might be sucked out of the Liffey River and Liverpool dock. There was a 'blow down system' where the contents of 2 large 3000-psi gas bottles could be purged back through the water pumps. This often only partially worked and the pumps had to be cleared during over night maintenance after divers had made the pump orifice watertight.

The Maintenance Schedule consisted of daily and weekly items coupled with a form of equalised servicing for monthly, quarterly and 6 monthly items, and the craft received Annual Maintenance in Jan when travel was less popular. The basic skill level of most of the Maintenance Crew was first class but alas their co-operation and work ethic on occasions was frustrating, especially when the future of the Jetfoil became unclear in late 1981. Although mechanically reliable it was policy not run in force 9 gales (not surprisingly for a 100 ton craft) in case for any reason power was lost necessitating a 'landing' and the craft then become a boat. Coupled with the 'unexpected' number of force 9 gales and unprecedented failure of 2 turbine high-speed shafts in the first 15 months of operation, the cancellations were more than expected. We later heard that out of the ten thousand similar high-speed shafts manufactured, 3 were incorrectly heat-treated and we had the miss fortune to have been supplied with 2 of the 3! In addition the 'Hunger Strikes' by the IRA prisoners in the North and the precarious political situation in the Country put many travellers off from taking their holidays in Ireland and the load factor of the Jetfoil dropped off.
Towards the end of 1981 the decision to sell the Jetfoil was made public. [Ironically after the decision to sell the Jetfoil the situation improved, travellers increased and at weekends all seats were taken.] Not surprisingly the Maintenance Staff were very upset, as they knew that they would be laid off.
Apparently my future was safe but quite what I was to do long term escaped me.

To be continued