Oral history of the Malta Dockyard: Charles Montefort

(00:30) He was born in Alexandria and came to Malta in 1947 where he went to a state school. At that time there were special schools for the dockyard. He sat for the exam in 1949 and joined the yard with about another 240 apprentices, out of which 24 were fitters. He ranked 16th place so he had the option to choose the trade of engine fitter. 

(01:45) In the first 2 years of apprenticeship they were situated in a workshop where they were trained on bench fitting (Charlie Rowe and Mr Saliba) and machines (Mr Vella).

Entering the dockyard-Dockyard layout 

(02:30) The training centre was situated near Ghajn Dwieli, next to the combined drawing office in a shed, but the machinery workshop was located underground. Most of the machinery was new, however they also had some old machinery. He still recalls a damaged chuck on one of the lathes.

(03:15) After their second year, they moved out of the training centre and were stationed in the shops, mainly the factory and the drawing office. They also frequented the dockyard technical school. During the third year, the best three apprentices from the engine fitters, electricians and shipwrights, were chosen to take part in the equal opportunities scheme, and he was one of the chosen. They were sent to England where they were given the same field training and classes in the technical school.

(04:30) In 1955, when he finished the apprenticeship, while he was still in England, he returned to Malta due to family reasons and became an engine fitter. During his time as a fitter, from 1955 till 1959, he worked in the factory where he learned a lot.

(05:30) In 1959, there was already a lot of changes due to the transfer in management from the Admiralty to Bailey. There was the introduction of the double shift system. There was a lot of work on both Naval and Commercial vessels.

(06:15) A vacancy for a recorder was issued and he was chosen for the post, where he did a lot of improvements. Then there was the opportunity to move to the drawing office as a draughtsman. Initially, the senior recorder was hesitant to let him go, however, he still became a draughtsman in the drawing office, with the machinery section.

(07:30) Apart from works concerning machinery, they also had other work such as pitching of propellers and bench markings of the canons.

While he was a draughtsman, they tried making a joint venture with Clyde crane and Booth to start building cranes, where he was chosen together with other draughtmen to work in their office, design of cranes and preparing working drawings.

The team was made up of: himself, Joe Magri, and Manuel Portelli were the Engine Fitters and Carmel Caruana was on the Electrical side. They had left a good impression on the company that they were offered to join the crane company.

(09:15) When they came back, they continued preparing the working drawings. In fact, they built the crane at Boiler Wharf and three other dockside cranes. 

(09:45) At that time, the Maltese management (after Bailey?) started taking over and many draughtsmen wanted to leave the drawing office, to take up positions as foremen and chargemen.

(10:45) Moreover, the drawing office at the time was composed of knowledgeable and experienced people, which were then replaced by people who did not have the required experience.

Then there was the introduction of a management development scheme to train the selected ones adequately in the different yard departments, so that they could be promoted to project manager or shiprepair manager. He was one of them, shadowing a departmental manager, taking on certain projects and compiling reports. Eventually he became a shiprepair manager. 

(13:15) He worked on vessels such as Esso, Shell, BP and Agip. He was also assigned vessels from French, Italian, and Algerian clients. This was due to his knowledge of languages.

(14:00) The first vessel he had, after becoming a shiprepair manager, was the Chemical Contender (worked with Alfred Cachia), and the last vessel he recalls, was the Agip Genova, where he gave the handover to Mr. Balzan. In 1973, as he was then transferred to the Commercial office, as an assistant commercial manager. There he was delegated to marketing work, representing the dockyard abroad, such as in North Africa, Europe, America, and even Cuba, and also, spending some time in the London office. 

(16:30) The Maltese government had proposed the dockyard to open an office with the Suez Canal authority where he and a council member, Mr. Michael Seychell, took this task and opened the office-he recall representatives that were on rotation between the Suez Canal office and Malta.

(17:30) Due to the experience he had in the drawing office, he was transferred to the New Building section, which required sections for estimating, projects and accounting. At the time, a small number of naval architects had come back from Spain, and he took it as an opportunity to take them on board (Joe Meli, Horace Fenech & Angelo Attard). 

(19:00) When he was working in the New Building Commercial, they signed a contract for the building of product carriers where he went to China for six weeks to discuss the work and sign the contract. 

(20:00) At the same time, they were also involved, in various other newbuilding projects, as well in of the Malta Shipbuilding workshops. 

Looking back-Reflections 

(20:30) He talks about how he feels that the government at that time looked at the dockyard as a place that could solve the problem of unemployment. This resulted in having too many people working there. Due to this, they always felt the impact that politics had on the dockyard as if they were a ball being passed from political side to another. 

(22:45) In 1984-The newbuilding of ships for Russian clients was started at the new Malta shipbuilding. Then there was a decision that the new building team had to reallocate to the Malta Shipbuilding as secondments. The move was not taken lightly by the majority of the staff because it was not their line of work and they did not have enough experience.

In actual fact there was no way out of this decision and still had to move and organise the commercial section within the Malta Shipbuilding Yard.

(24:45) Projects within the Shipbuilding were the Chinese supply vessels, Gozo Channel ferries (he was there for the initial phases of the discussion, as he left in 1995 when the contract was not confirmed yet).

(26:00) In 1995, there was the opportunity for early retirement, and he decided to take, because he was not happy with the situation at the Malta Shipbuilding. 

(26:45) In 1990, they were asked to go on Malta Shipbuilding books, where he was appointed commercial manager and continued working there till 1995. 

Family and Social Life-Home life 

(27:30) Family-Working in the dockyard was not easy, especially when it came to the long working hours they had. He missed most, if not all, of his children’s childhood and growing into adulthood. On the other hand, it gave him the possibility to maintain the family. It had also given him various opportunities, such as working abroad, government delegations, and meeting different people along his journey.

(28:30) He was involved a lot in the discussions about the introduction of shipbuilding in Malta. This was not just building ships, but included manufacturing of equipment in Malta under licence from specialised companies. He and other, were even discussing with FIAT a plan of manufacturing car engines in Malta.

He also mentioned that new building started at the repair yard. Working for the Algerians such as bridges and Omni barges.

Due to this, the government was aware that shipbuilding and the shiprepair were conflicting. Workers from the shiprepair were being sent to shipbuilding ending up with fewer people in the dockyard working on shiprepair.