Oral history of the Malta Dockyard: Paul Mizzi

(00:30) He started his technical education in the trade school. He was one of the first students that were moved to the trade schools, and they started their education with instructors that came from the dockyard doing various item that were required to furnish the Umberto Colosso School. After three years at the Umberto Colosso and one year at the Technical Institute, he joined the dockyard in 1976 as yard boy.

(03:15) He remembers working on buoys in the fabrication shops. He was very young and he liked the experience of the new working environment. He became a welder / burner and was always allocated to the steel fabrication workshops, and various other shops as required, such as the pipeworkers shop. 

(05:15) The last three years he worked on the CNC machine cutting plates in various items requited for the construction of steel structures. He worked at the steel shops for 27 years, working on various projects, like the Freeport cranes, the Chinese ships, Russian vessels, etc.

(06:45) When they finished school, they were directly allocated to the work place. He commented that even though they did not do the dockyard apprenticeship, the workers still accepted them and helped them to integrate in the work requirements.

(08:15) He then describes the working procedure of fabrication of steel blocks that were then assembled in the drydock to form the complete ship. He generally worked on production welding, and the heating of plates to shape and fair curved plates. He describes the working method of this fairing.

(12:30) Paul also mentions the welding quality required, and the inspections that were carried out by the Quality Control inspectors. 

(14:30) Paul stopped working at the dockyard in 2003. For him it was a very difficult period, as they were offered a sum of money for voluntary retirement or else accept to wait for other work outside the dockyard. He took the second option. However, he had to wait for six months to be allocated with Heritage Malta. He remembers, that he did not expect that he was going to end his experience working in the dockyard that way.