When I was driving for Brit European,on a trip to Doha in my Transcon,when I had tipped,I got the insructions,“Go to Tartous in Syria,someone is running a roll on/roll off ferry to Cyprus.Get on this ferry,someone will meet you in Cyprus and tell you your next move”!
This was in the early days of M/E and the reason the overland trucking started was because there was only one deep sea port in Saudi and they could not get goods in quick enough by sea,so overland was the only option.That was OK for goods from Europe,but what about goods from other parts of the world?It so happened that Cyprus had quite an active container port at Limmasol,and some enterprising Armenians had hired a ro-ro ferry boat from France and was shipping Arab trucks over from Tartous to load containers,back to Syria then overland to Saudi,Kuwait and other destinations.The big problem was,the average Arab trucker was an O/D with some ancient tackle and usually a home made trailer.Loading a 40’ box weighing 30 tonnes or two 20’s at 20 tonnes each was really expecting a lot,but as they were paid by the tonne,they were prepared to take the risk.
It turned out that Ron Carman had been approached by these Armenian guys looking for some transport organisation that was more efficient and reliable than these ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ who was in the area at the time to check the job out?Yes,no prizes,yours truly.
So,I found this ro-ro operator,squeezed onto this tiny boat with doors at one end only,and by putting oil on the floor and a chain on the back of your trailer,it was possible to slide your rig against the wall and get 12 trucks on board.
Accomodation for the 10 hour trip was a 20’ container chained to the top deck!.
I apologise for the quality of these pics,but they were all colour slides and the only method I have to post them is to project them onto a screen then take a digital photo.
Short arsed ferry boat at Tartous docks.
Straddle carrier loading boxes onto the raghe@d trucks in Limmasol docks.
Who needs twist locks? I stripped my tilt down and a box just sits nicely inside the sideboards.A chain roud the arse end to stop it sliding out and away you go!
Queue at Syria/Jordan border.
Driving down the tapline,I met up with this guy driving a municipal Bedford from UK to Dammam.
This could have been a great job.With being paid by the tonne,the obvious thing was to get some weight on,and there was any amount of 20’ boxes with 20 tonnes of sugar in them.I was not prepared to overload my rig,just an average load and do a couple of runs to get the idea.
I did one run to Kuwait and one run to Riyhad,then dropped my empty box in Tartous docks to make my way back home as by now I had been away 3 months!
As there was no real restriction on weight and design of trucks there in those days,as has been mentioned in another thread,Mickey White was running double 40 footers out of Jeddah docks,me and the Armenian guy in Cyprus came up with a design for a rig to earn some money.
As I was more than happy with the Transcon,we thought about having a special,an 8 legger rigid with a 350 ■■■■■■■ to carry a 20’ box,towing a dolly with a tri axle 40’er to carry a pair of 20’ boxes!Payload,60 tonnes!
Unfortunately,old man Carman was a VERY cautious guy and would not back the idea,so it died in the water,shame.
So the job came to an end when I got home,and after being away for 3 months,my kids had almost forgotten about me!
