The role of such legendary ship owning entrepreneurs as Daniel Ludwig and Stavros Niarchos in creating the modern crude oil carrier, Malcolm McLean the containership and Erling Naess the OBO are well-documented chapters of modern maritime history. These vessel types were developed to serve a pressing commercial need, and have spawned worldwide fleets of modern vessels that are not substantially different from their archetypes. One lesser-known chapter of the same history was written by Ole Skaarup, who can claim to have had the major part in creating the modern dry bulk carrier as we know it today.

Today, nearly 7,000 bulkers are at sea, carrying ore, rock, pulp, coal, grains, and other cargoes. But in 1955, purpose-built dry bulkers did not exist (though ore-oil carriers had been introduced). General bulk cargoes were mostly carried in converted Liberty Ships and surplus tonnage.

Ole Skaarup began Skaarup Shipping on a shoestring budget in 1951. By 1954, the small ship brokerage firm was fixing ships for a number of shipowners and shippers of bulk cargoes. One January day that year, sitting in his office at 21 West Street in New York City, Skaarup began thinking about the vessels that bulk shippers had available to them.

A Logical Design

Oil-ore carriers were fine, he thought, but you can't use them for coal or grain because you don't have sufficient cubic capacity. The rest of the available fleet consisted of Liberty Ships and a variety of 'tweendeckers. Coal and rock cargoes were often stowed in the 'tweendeck, and the shaft tunnel amidships made discharging a nuisance. This was inefficient enough, but hauling grain could be a nightmare.

Before loading grain into a Liberty Ship, you first needed to install grain fittings or "shifting boards" - an awkward arrangement of wooden frames, beams and boards designed to stop the grain from running into the vessel's wing spaces or shifting during transport and wreaking havoc with stability. Atop the shifting boards were bins or "grain feeders" designed to ensure that the holds were completely full. Constructing this plywood labyrinth took a team of carpenters several days' worth of valuable time, and cost about $10,000 (in 1954 dollars)! To make matters worse, if the return cargo was coal (or anything but grain), another team would have to come aboard and tear the whole arrangement down - for another $10,000. Furthermore, most available vessels had machinery amidships occupying the ideal place for heavy, high-volume cargo.

To Skaarup, it seemed that the most practical ship should have wide, clear cargo holds. Thus, it would require machinery aft, wide hatch openings to ease cargo handling and a hold configuration that could eliminate the need for shifting boards. To make the hatches acceptable as grain feeders, they would have to extend several feet above deck.

He began making sketches on a notepad. He knew that a hold filled with grain had two large air spaces at its top corners, because the grain pile sloped downward from the hatch opening to the wall of the hold. The grain tended to shift during transport. The key to the design, he reasoned, would be sloped wing tanks in the upper part of the hold that would carry ballast and also fill this void. He sketched out a midship section. "Dammit!," he exclaimed, "This is the way to do it!" Then he made a proper drawing and took his idea overseas to some well-respected associates.

Sold For A Song

Working with Swedish ship owners Nordstrom & Thulin, Skaarup finally realized his idea. "But," he adds, "the man to whom I sold the idea was not from Nordstrom and Thulin. He was Marcus Wallenberg, the greatest Swedish industrialist ever." The head of Stockholm Enskilda Banken, Wallenberg had major holdings in such companies as Asea, Stora Kopparberg, Atlas Copco, Saab Scania, Electrolux, L.M. Ericsson and SKF.

Nordstrom & Thulin, a long-established ship owner, had been among Stockholm Enskilda Banken's first customers nearly a century before. So 90-year-old Mr. P.G. Thulin, the firm's patriarch, introduced Mr. Skaarup to Mr. Wallenberg. The two men began what was to become a lifelong, productive friendship. "In order for Wallenberg to find out whether I was really genuine, he put me through a little test," recalls Skaarup. "I had told somebody that I was a saxophone player from way back, and that I had had a band back in Copenhagen. Well, I was out to dinner with these bankers and, sure enough, somebody brought in a saxophone to check me out. Fortunately, I was a pretty good sax player at the time; I blew them a few tunes and that established my credibility."

Skaarup explained his concept to Wallenberg, who accepted his reasoning and agreed to collaborate on the development of the vessel. "Marcus Wallenberg was a man of decision," Skaarup recalls with fondness and respect. "I said 'this is the way these ships should be built' and he said 'Let's order one.'" The contract for the first purpose-built, oceangoing dry bulk carrier - then referred to as the OS-type design - was signed with the Kockums shipyard on 22 March 1954.

As what often happens with new ideas, basic elements of Skaarup's plan were challenged by the yard's conventional-minded engineers. "You can't steer from aft," they said. "Okay, let's put an auxiliary navigation bridge up front," answered Skaarup. "If we made hatches that big, we'd have to strengthen the deck." "So, strengthen the deck." "You should put a bulkhead in the middle of the holds for strength to serve as shifting boards." They drew it onto his plans. "No way," he answered, and crossed it out.

And so it went. Eventually, Skaarup built his OS-type vessel, with machinery aft, wing tanks to prevent cargo shifting, wide-open cargo holds with smooth sides and sloped bulk-heads to facilitate cargo discharge and cleanup, and without a center bulkhead. He conceded to an odd-looking navigation bridge about amidships, an element he never repeated. His basic design has stood the test of time. "Today there are about 7,000 ships virtually identical to the OS-type." The original plan, which still shows the crossed-out center bulkhead, is one of his proudest possessions.