Oral history of the Malta Dockyard: Joseph Borg

Education-Apprenticeship process 

(00:30) In 1971, Joseph sat for the dockyard examination. That year, 60 apprentices were required and he placed in the 65th position, so he was not chosen. Then he sat again for the examination in 1972, with his brother. His brother came with the first 20, and he came in the 42nd position. They chose the trade according to the order of merit. His brother chose a shipwright, and he joined as a pipeworker.

(03:45) Borg did not have a technical background, so he started the technical course G1 (General Engineering Course 1) He states that the first 3 to 4 years at the dockyard school, everything was a repetition, so he describes it as it was plain sailing for him. However, when he started technical drawing, he faced problems as he is left-handed. However, he continued doing and moving forward in school. He and his brother attended the shipbuilding technician courses up to 1981. Then he began working as a pipeworker and within a year or two he mastered the trade.

(06:30) He remembers when Shell tankers started arriving at the shipyard, where they used to install inert gas systems.  They also made water separation systems and other systems. This involved a lot of pipework. During that period, the chargeman who was responsible for this work, resigned, and the manager Mr Montefort asked Borg if he was interested to take over the gang. A vacancy for a chargeman was issued, however he was not successful. Borg states that he was disappointed, but sometime later there was a vacancy for shiprepair managers, for which he applied and was accepted. 

(09:45) He describes that throughout the six years he spent as a pipefitter, they were involved in a lot of major works. After the Falklands war a passenger ship taken over by the British government, was brought to the dockyard for refurbishment.

Education-Projects 

(11:45) Afterwards he started with the shiprepair managers’ section, where he spent 6 months training as a chargeman and another six months training as a foreman.

While he was training as a chargeman, two supply ships were being built by the new building section.  He was given charge of one of the ships that was still at its starting stages of construction. At that time, Malta shipbuilding was about to operations, so they had pipeworkers from there to work and at the same to get training. This meant that he had to carry out the work and at the same time train the pipeworkers. He remembers George Malan, who was the Hull manager on both ships, was always impressed how Borg always managed to use all the pipes, but Joseph considered pipes as the veins of the ship. Cikku Caruana, who was the Pipeworkers manager, complimented Joseph for his work and asked him to stay working with the Pipeworkers department, however, Joseph decided to become a Shiprepair manager. 

(16:15) A year later he started his training with the Shiprepair managers and at that time a lot of Algerian ships were coming to the yard where they required a lot of work. Borg started taking care of accommodation items, like air conditioning, etc. After the first 3 months, he spent four weeks at Manoel Island and then he continued his training with the estimating and Shiprepair accounts departments and the drawing office. Then he eventually started taking work on his own.

Education-Projects 

(20:45) A major work he was involved with was on the ships Lampas and Lepeta. He worked on this project with other ship managers Victor White and Joe (he forgot the name) who worked on steelwork.  These ships were 310m long. Borg took the pipework repairs on deck and in the tanks. Work took about three months. They had to lift all cargo lines which were 20 inches in diameter. The ballast lines were removed and were replace by fibreglass pipes. The work was massive.

 

(26:15) He did a stretch of five years always working on ships in No.6 Dock, which was 360m long. He states that a walk around the dock took about 20 minutes. No.6 Dock was difficult to work in, because a lot of times, the wind affected the crane operations, which are crucial during the repairs of a ship.

He remembers the passenger ship ‘Royal Viking Sun’. This had grounded on the Egyptian coast. The machinery spaces and the crews’ quarters which were at the bottom areas of the ship were all flooded. This work was assigned to Louis Scicluna, and since it was a lot of work, Joseph assisted him by taking care of the accommodation. Accommodation work on a passenger ship, was quite difficult as it involved a lot of different trades.

That was the time when he started working on passenger ships at an average three per year. 

(31:00) He had a gang with him, but he wanted to know the people who counted. His job as a shiprepair manger was to represent the dockyard, and even carry out ship visits to check the requirements. Borg states that he has been to Europe several times, and even to England, in fact he visited the London office too. He even mentions that he has been nearly to all ports of Europe. Once he even joined a passenger ship at Rio de Janeiro and joined the cruise to inspect the work. He and his gang went to re-join the ship in Gibraltar and sailed up to the shipyard. 

Entering the dockyard-Trades (From approval to the departure of a vessel) 

(36:45) He remembers one passenger ship owned by Air Tours. The shipyard was awarded the contract for the repairs of one of their ships, the Carousel. The main work was to remove all its eight generators and put in new five generators. This meant that this was not a direct replacement of generators, but a complete re-arrangement including the position inside the generator room, which involved re-routing of all piping and electrical systems.

The ship side was opened and the old generators were slid out on platforms on the shipside and the new ones were slid in on the new foundations.

Safety-Health and Safety procedures 

(40:15) He remembers that when he joined the dockyard everyone ran around with flipflops, but along the line standards improved substantially. When working on oil-rigs, safety was of utmost importance. He remembers one rig, the Atwood Hunter. He visited the ship in Alexandria and joined the rig outside the harbour with a helicopter. Before boarding the ship, they had to make a survival course in Malta.

(44:30) The work on that the rig required was quite extensive with a very limited time. All the work was to very high quality with plate thicknesses up to 50mm.

They made an effort and completed the work one day before. He used to start work very early, because the rig representative wanted to meet at 5:30 in the morning so as to organise the work for the day.

(50:00) He talks about when he worked on the P&O ships. In one year, they had three refits at the drydocks. They had huge hatch covers, and it was important to plan the sequence of the work. Borg mentions that the ships had a lot of steel work. Being refrigerated vessels, they were very fast ships and used to run from La Spezia to New Zealand and back.

Education-Projects