Oral history of the Malta Dockyard: William Bugeja

(00:30) Born in the UK, returned with family to Malta at the age of four years. Talks briefly about his examinations to enter the Dockyard and his apprenticeship up to when he became a journeyman.

(16:15) He describes his move up to management level after working for 10 years as a Shipwright on board ships. Working on board ships (afloat work) rendered more overtime and money, even though the work was much more dangerous, and where, at the time, the safety culture was still very basic. He passed through the ranks of Chargeman, where he took over from Tony Coleiro who was a Union delegate. Then foreman up to Divisional Manager. Worked on major steel repairs, such as the Ocean Tide Rig Conversion, Rover, Cunard Countess, Robert E Lee. 

He mentioned that at the age of about 21 he had to change his citizenship from English to Maltese to stay employed with the Shipyard.

(18:00) William described some near misses’ accident that he was involved in. When he was still a shipwright and they were testing the hatch covers for water tightness. He was assigned to enter the hold and to look for any leaks. Before he entered the hold, he stepped on some hydraulic oil and while descending the vertical ladder in the hold, he slipped and luckily, he got caught by his arms in side the deck opening.

Another time was when he was a Chargeman. He and another shipwright were inspecting a diesel tank, and they did not detect a leak that was coming from the sounding pipe. When they started burning, the diesel caught fire, but luckily both managed to get out of the tank in time.

The third near miss, was when they working in a tank and an adjacent tank went on fire. Luckily, they managed to exit the tank on time.  

 

(21:30) William also spoke on the safety on board the ships. One of the major hazards on a ship was the existence of gases in tanks. In time the safety improved, when a permanent chemist and gas testers were employed by the yard to certify tank entrance.

Another improvement was made when docking mules were introduced, whereby these mules substituted manual handling of the ropes used to pull the ship inside the drydock.

Asbestos was also considered a highly hazardous material on a ship. The older ships had asbestos in the accommodation, insulation, etc. The situation improved when material containing asbestos was checked and made safe prior to any work commencement.  

(26:00) When he was promoted to Deputy Divisional Manager. This was new work for him and when he asked his superior Mr V Micallef what was he was going to do, Vince told him that he should go around the yard and observe what is going on. This would give him an overall situation of the work in hand.

He was then also involved in assessing the duration of work on ships still being quoted to clients. This position involved a lot of problem solving, coming from the different departments. Practically, all projects in the shipyard had the objective to finish the ship within the agreed duration, so we were under continuous pressure.

Looking back-Memories of the Last Dayed

(30:15) The pressure on the division increased during the last years of the yard. There were reductions of personnel and a lack of younger people, so the yard ended up with an aging population of workers. Workers that passed through difficult work conditions, contaminated with fumes, noise and hazardous material. William said he suffers from lack of hearing, a condition found on a lot of yard workers.

(34:45) He was transferred to Marsa yard (Malta Shipbuilding yard). The idea was to start doing shiprepair at Marsa. However, there were big difficulties coming from the small local yards at Marsa, as well as problems from the harbour pilots to get ships in the Marsa Dock.

Once they had a problem with a ship in the drydock, which had a temporary wooden plug. When this was removed, oil started coming out of the tank on to the dock floor. The Marsa dock had a system that when water fills up the culverts, a pump will automatically start to pump the fluid outside the drydock and into the sea. This created a disastrous situation when the oil on the sea surface went around yachts and other vessels in the area.

(37:15) Shiprepair at Marsa site was stopped, and eventually work changed to fabrication of Buoys for an Offshore company called Bluewater. These required very high-quality control. About four buoys were built at the Marsa dock area. Then he was involved in the construction project of the Barge 8 for AGIP. This was completed with flying colours. During the same period, the Fairmount project was started, and the block for the lengthened ship was fabricated at Marsa.

(41:15) From Marsa he was moved to Manoel Island yacht Yard with Mr Victor White. Work at Manoel Island was relatively good, because the physical effort on yachts is low compared to a ship, working in a cleaner environment.

Life after the Dockyard-Finding a new job 

(41:30) He said that at the age of 59 there was the decision to close the shipyard. At first, he was depressed and felt that after all the years working in the shipyard, he felt that he was just considered as a number.

After he left the shipyard, he wanted to do something with his time. He thought of going back to do work on Aluminium Doors and windows. This work was introduced to him by a colleague from the shipyard, Mr S. Piscopo, who showed him how to do Aluminium windows/doors.

Eventually he decided to pick up his old hobbies of fishing and bird breeding.

Looking back-Relationships formed 

(42:30) His experience in the yard was very good. The work varied a lot and was not boring.

He said that the workers are as a family. They shared their experience and their problems.

As chargeman he had to monitor his men not only on their work, but also on their personal problems. As a chargeman he was young relative to his gang, but once accepted they helped him on the technical requirements such as moulding of shaped plates.