Tom Vosmer, Construction Director
Tom Vosmer, Construction Director
29th September 2008
Tom Vosmer, Construction Director
After months the main timber supply for the ship has arrived from Africa
On my first of three trips to Ghana in search of a supply of timber, I remember reading the list of house rules for the bungalow-style hotel in which we stayed in a small dusty milling town. The last rule declared, “Guests are urged to maintain sanity while outside the rooms.” Reasonable advice, but during this entire process — searching for timber, cutting, milling, shipping — maintaining sanity was not always easy. The entire process was heavily laden with delays, frustrations and complex bureaucratic complications.
Though the timber has not been released from customs, I did manage a peek at it. After negotiating the complexities of getting permission just to enter the port, I was led to one of the containers. “Ah, yes, I recognise you,” I thought. The last time I saw that container had been on a rough unsealed road in the northeast of Ghana. Now here it was, looking a bit worn and shabby, in Port Sultan Qaboos, Oman. The latches groaned and screeched and the door swung open revealing a jumble of planks and baulks, dusted with a coating of white mould. Not a surprise really – the mould, that is. That door had been sealed on the timber 104 days before.
Delivery had been excruciatingly slow, with numerous delays in ports along the way. Those 104 days of dark, hot, moist conditions had led to an exuberant blossoming of mould all over the wood. But poking around at the wood indicated that the timber itself was sound. I was told by the health inspector that the inside of the container would be subjected to a controlled chemical weapons attack, then sealed for twenty-four hours to allow things to settle down. I was assured that following the attack, the timber would be safe to handle. We shall see.
Qantab, Oman