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The "Esso Fawley"-class
From the Book Sailing ship to Supertanker.
When built, these ships of just over 18,000 deadweight tons were the largest in Esso's coastal fleet, distributing refined products from the Fawley and Milford Haven refineries. They became frequent users of the Dingle tanker buoy berth in the River Mersey.
Five tank spaces were subdivided to give fifteen tanks, two of which were for segregated water ballast. Each cargo tank was given its own suction line connecting to four manifolds in the cargo pump room, so that four different grades of cargo oil could be discharged simultaneously. If necessary, two pumps could discharge from a single tank.
Two oil engines were geared to a single controllable pitch propeller. Controls for this and for a bow thrust unit were through a console in the bridge housing. Speed was 16.25 knots. Measurements: Length 553 feet 7 inches (oa)/508 feet (bp), breadth 72 feet. Built by A/B Lindholmens Varv, Gothenburg:
A third sistership, Esso Slagen, completed by Lindholmens in October, 1968, was for Esso Norske, Oslo. She was slightly different in that she was equipped for part carriage of bitumen.
The Dingle Tanker Buoy berth was completed in August, 1967. It consists of four mooring buoys where a tanker can moor from bow and stern near a moored "Hose barge" with six hoses which connect to the discharging tanker. The hoses reach to the river bed where they join with steel pipes to shore tankage at Dingle Bank. Dingle Tanker Buoy is about half a mile offshore of Dingle Bank tank storage complex and adjacent to Herculaneum Branch Dock, where importation of oil began in 1892.
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