We were the selling agent for the Branston on behalf of the owner Goldfield Metal Traders to a Hong Kong ship breaker. Her owner, Stuart White had a contract with the MSB for clearing the sunken ships at Homebush Bay. He also bought locomotive scrap from the NSW and Queensland railways. The deal struck was that the ship be sold and loaded with rail and ships’ scrap and towed to Hong Kong. He also negotiated for the non-ferrous parts under the water line to be taken off.
   The buyer being a very experienced ship breaker felt at best Stuart could remove the propeller and some parts but not all parts including valves as the ship would sink. He also felt the deal was so small in value that he didn’t bother to fly out to inspect.
   Well, how wrong he was because White was such a smart operator that he indeed removed every bit of non-ferrous parts under the water line. The breaker found out upon the ship’s arrival at Hong Kong. He praised Stuart for being such a smart guy and he only had himself to blame for not bothering to come out to inspect prior to signing the contract.
   White decided that he wanted to maximise his profit by doing his own towing so he bought a former HMT built 1940 in UK. Nullagine was a 146ft 1300hp 12.5 knots ocean-going tug which by that stage was being used to handle ore carriers in South Australia.

  This he was to use to tow ships over to the Asian breakers, and southbound with whatever work he could get and then repeat the whole exercise again as he had by then bought a number of ships. He decided to have it registered under the Australian Flag and the huge cost involved dragged him down financially and to a certain extent, when he couldn’t pay the bills, also caused financial trouble to S.G. White (no relation) Ship Yard at Balmain.
   The Branston was ready for tow and left Sydney with a stop in Townsville loading for more scrap then sailing to Hong Kong. The word around the water front was the Branston would never make it. Anyway, they were all wrong. She did make it and she arrived earlier than scheduled!
   I flew to Hong Kong to hand over the ship and her cargo on behalf of the owner, and a cable was waiting for me telling me to sell the tug immediately as Stuart needed the money urgently. The tug was sold to a Malaysian Timber Company. I then had to pay out the crew with first class airfares back to Australia.
   Furthermore, to clear out the ship’s store before handover, it took two men some two hours to take out all the food, drinks, etc – sufficient to feed an entire football team for a week. Our shipping broker asked if the crew was on some holiday cruise.
   That ended the towing venture. We even lost the deposit for a second Miller collier contracted with Stuart. He soldiered on but he didn’t do well and lost three car and passenger ferries when a later tow went wrong. One sank, the others washed ashore. After being stripped of all valuable metals, she remains lying on the Northern Coast.
   The last we saw of him he was towing a trailer around collecting scrap metal … a sad ending for a very smart operator. Homebush Bay was not cleaned up when he left and much remained.
   For me, being the young romantic with dreams of sailing around Sydney, I did take one of Branston’s life boats (with the buyer’s permission). I intended to convert her into a day sailor. She was anchored at Five Dock Bay but later stolen, and that was the end of my dream!
   In Hong Kong, I saw many, many timber lifeboats being burnt for the copper fittings and nails. Since they had too many, even the local boatmen didn’t want them. If I had known the interest for timber boats nowadays I should have taken a few back to Sydney.