Over the years I have read many books regarding the Battle of the Atlantic and the role of the U-boat. This was largely due to a guy I once worked with suggesting I read a book called “Iron Coffins’’ which is a personal account of the German U-boat battles written by former German U-boat commander Herbert Werner. Other books I read included Teddy Suhren ‘’Aces of Aces,” the story of U-530 that made it from Norway to Argentina after the war, covering most of the journey submerged using the schnorkel and Gunther Prien’s U-Boat Commander including his adventure into Scapa Flow. Having read many of the books written by Germans I turned my attention to our own subs operating largely in the Med and also to the American fleet subs operating in the Pacific. Subs whose names will remain in the history books like Cod, Tang and Barb, large Gato class boats with no fewer that 4 diesel engines that could touch 20Kts on the surface.
As a consequence of reading these books I had the urge to cross the Atlantic by ship to get a feeling for what the long passage would be like, obviously no real danger in peacetime but I wanted to gain the experience. Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 being the sole active ocean-going liner rather limits one’s choices somewhat so I consulted Mrs P regarding a cruise on the liner. She was not keen, not keen at all, suggesting that she didn’t want to be that far from land and that she’d come on a fjords cruise with me. My suggestion that it would be highly unlikely that you would make the shore from a sunken ship even if only a half a mile away in the prevailing water temps did not help. Oh well, back to the drawing board, I really did not fancy being on my own on a cruise ship.
Many years ago I watched a TV programme ‘Around the World in 80 days’ with Michael Palin and he travelled on cargo ships, that got me thinking and a bit of Googling brough up a website called Cargo Ship Voyages. Bingo, all sorts of trips were possible, even long 60 day voyages crossing the world and stopping at various ports. I discovered that the Atlantic Container Line (ACL) operated 4 or 5 ships on the Atlantic run, large 100,000 ton ConRo ships. These are container ships with an additional roll-on roll-off provision via a ramp at the rear for vehicles and equipment like cars, lorries, cranes, railway locos etc. Interestingly one of the predecessors to the current fleet was the Atlantic Conveyor, which of course all readers will know well from The Falklands.
The ACL vessels are operated by Grimaldi Lines which are a huge Italian outfit with many passenger ferries and those great ugly yellow car carriers which look like shoe boxes. I noted that they had a few pages dedicated to passenger trips on their cargo vessels on their commercial website – not easy to find, so thought I would have a go at contacting them directly rather than using Cargo Ship Voyages as a middle man. This turned out to be a mistake although I could never have imagined why at the time.
I made contact with one of their employees in Italy via email and told her what I would like to do and yes it was possible, she provided me with a list of options stating provisional sailing dates from Liverpool to Halifax. These ships start their West bound route from Germany, stopping in Southampton before heading up to Liverpool, Halifax and then New York.
It was stressed that the timetable is only provisional and it regularly slips by a day or two due to tides, loading delays and other such variables, it is not like a scheduled airline or cruise ship. That was OK, I could accommodate that with ease as getting to Liverpool is simple for me. I would need suitable travel insurance with x amount of cover to pay for helicopters, hospitals and repatriation etc should the need arise. A quick search via google indicated that all the UK major players offered this cover so I purchased a policy and emailed the documents to her. The information was unacceptable as the format wasn’t correct, so I said that was all I had sadly. Nope, no good, not acceptable means no travel. Bugger, I phoned the insurance company, told them of my plans and asked if they could modify the paperwork to adopt the required Grimaldi format. Well, you can guess that one, much as they would love to assist me they simply could not due to various legal reasons. Bugger again, now what, about 10 emails so far with me being super polite but with no joy. Then I hit upon the solution, I opened Word, copied and pasted all the information into the required format and then used the free tool to convert it to a pdf and sent it to her. ‘’Thank-you,’’ she replied, ‘’that is absolutely perfect!’’ Of course, I left it at that and didn’t tell her what I had done but I suspect she guessed.
I had the choice of a regular cabin used by lower ranking crew or the “owner’s cabin’’ for the crossing. The regular cabin is very similar to the sort that you would have on an overnight ferry crossing, compact with a little bathroom and a single bunk bed. The owner’s cabin sits right behind the bridge on the opposite side of the ship to the captain’s cabin and has a large lounge area, plenty of windows, fully furnished with entertainment and a separate large double bedroom and bathroom. As this was an exercise that I would be unlikely to repeat I decided to opt for the owner’s cabin and to hell with the cost. In general terms the cost was about £100/day but that included food and beer, so not too bad I guess.
Money was paid and I received some paperwork from Grimaldi indicating the scheduled crossing, boarding port, approximate dates and destination. As the departure date approached I checked on Marine Traffic to see where my ship, the Atlantic Sun was and watched her progress. I had also found the email address and phone number for the Grimaldi agent in Liverpool and had a very helpful conversation with him regarding sailing times and when to present myself at the gang plank.
The day had arrived and so I boarded an early train to Liverpool Lime Street, having to change at Wigan I think. No time to bugger around with public transport and so I jumped in a black cab and asked for Seaforth Docks. 20 minutes later we arrived at a gatehouse that was a hive of activity with lorries coming and going and so I dodged them all and arrived at a window to speak to a security goon. I explained what I was doing and he looked puzzled not knowing how to treat me. I attempted to show him some paperwork but he said “nope, I don’t want to see that, walk around the barrier and if you stand by that sign fixed to a lump of concrete then a minibus driver who does the rounds every 10 minutes will pick you up, tell him where to take you.’’ I thanked him very much and promptly did as I was told. I could see the Atlantic Sun, all 100,000 tons of her in the distance. I waited for a considerable period of time but no minibus appeared and so I though bugger it and set off on foot for the ship. That probably busted about 10 health and safety rules but as Douglas Bader once said, rules are for the obedience of idiots and the guidance of wise men, Ignoring ze rules in these situations is something that I have made a habit of throughout my working life because when caught you simply apologise and that normally works, once at least. I made it to the ship and observed that containers were being loaded and at the rear was a huge great ramp and what appeared to be agricultural equipment being loaded. At the top of the ramp was a Filipino man in a small wooden hut that looked like it came from B&Q and I approached him. He studied the paperwork and told me to wait while he made a call on his radio. “5 minutes’’ he said, ‘’someone will collect you and show you to your room.’’ That was a relief, it looked like I had made it without the port security or police giving me a tough time.
A junior officer duly arrived, maybe a deck officer but I’m unfamiliar with the various demarcations and he escorted me to my cabin, We walked through a cavernous interior space that is used for the Ro-Ro (roll on – roll off) cargo and I spotted all sorts ranging from combine harvesters, railway locos, a huge transformer on dollies, hundreds of Land Rovers etc. You get the picture, if it’s not bulk cargo like grain and won’t fit into a container then it’s here. My cabin was very nice, extremely spacious, clean and with good facilities, the officer noticed that there were only about 20 bottles of water present and said he would have more sent to me, I thought that rather odd but said nothing. He showed me the board where meal times are displayed and said that someone would brief me and also show me how to get to the very rear of the ship where the lifeboat was situated before we set sail.
To be continued…
© text & images Cardinal Puff 2026
