Capt R “Bob” Royan

Many of his friends, colleagues and shipmates have paid their tributes:

Tim Atherton  

RIP. I had the privilege of sailing under Captain Royan on 5 trips on the SA Oranje from March 75 to her final run to Durban in October of the same year. A real gentleman. Happy memories. Rest in peace Sir

Charlie Wood

A proper gent, very pleased to have him as master of the Hector Heron whilst I was there. With Bill Codrington as Mate it was properly civilised.

Chris Borley

Sailed with him when he was Staff Commander well respected by ship's company

John le Peurian

RIP Bob, have a calm passage

Christopher Pailthorpe

A true gentleman. RIP Captain

Tony Freeman-Cosh

Absolute gentleman. Sailed with him on the SA Oranje, I think he did the last trip to Durban.

RIP Sir.

Ken Malcolm

RIP Commodore Royan. I recall he took SA Oranje to Taiwan in '75.

Margaret Smith

So sorry to hear of Bob’s passing - lovely man

Andy Skarstein

Very sad news, I sailed with him on Hector Heron and Clan Robertson, perfect gentleman. RIP Sir .....

Murdoch MacInnes

I first met Robert in 1956 when he was Chief Officer and I was 2nd mate on the Clan MacBean, a dear friend and a sad loss.

Captain Royan died on 18th January 2020 at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy

In September 1946 Cadet Robert Royan made his first trip up the Hooghly: “On my first voyage at sea as the junior cadet on the Clan Line first post-war ship T.S.S. Clan Cumming. Our first cargo was of wheat and flour in bags from the U.S.A. to India which was experiencing a severe famine. We were routed round the Cape of Good Hope having bunkered at Trinidad.

Our first port of call was at Madras where I witnessed real poverty for the first time. We then proceeded to Calcutta to discharge the rest of our cargo. We picked up the Hooghly pilot at the Sand Heads, out of sight of the land where the sea had shallowed quickly.

As junior cadet I was instructed to meet the pilot assisted by the duty secunny at the top of the pilot ladder. At that time the pilot boarded from a 10 oared cutter that brought him from the pilot vessel.

The pilot boarded and greeted me followed by his bearer (servant) in his uniform and turban followed by a chest containing all the pilots personal effects which the bridge had not told me about. I took the British pilot to the bridge in his immaculate white uniform where he was greeted by Captain Cossar.

Receiving the 1946 King’s Gold Medal

at

HMS Conway from HM King George VI

Service Record

From

To

HMS Conway


7/1946

Clan Cumming

Cadet

8/1946

6/1947

Clan MacFadyen

Cadet

6/1947

11/1947

Clan MacNair

Cadet

12/1947

4/1948

Clan MacCleod

Cadet

7/1948

10/1949

2nd Mate’s

Certificate



Clan MacIlwraith

3rd Officer

3/1950

7/1950

Clan MacRae

3rd Officer

8/1950

10/1951

1st Mate’s

Certificate



Clan MacQueen

2nd Officer

1/1952

5/1953

Clan Sinclair

2nd Officer

6/1953

1954

Master’s

Certificate



Clan MacTaggart

2nd Officer

3/1955

7/1955

Clan MacBean

Chief Officer

8/1955

11/1956

Clan MacKinlay

Chief Officer

12/1956

8/1957

Clan MacLennan

Chief Officer

9/1957

8/1958

Clan MacInnes

Chief Officer

12/1958

7/1962

Clan MacTavish

Chief Officer

2/1963

2/1964

Stirling Castle

1st Officer

4/1964

9/1964

Stirling Castle

Chief Officer

10/1964

11/1964

Transvaal Castle

Chief Officer

12/1964

4/1965

Kenya Castle

Chief Officer

7/1965

12/1965

Rhodesia Castle

Chief Officer

3/1966

7/1966

Capetown Castle

Chief Officer

7/1966

11/1966

Rhodesia Castle

Chief Officer

2/1967

4/1967

SA Oranje

Staff Commander

5/1967

10/1969

Nina Bowater

Master

3/1970

11/1971

Hector Heron

Master

8/1972

7/1974

SA Oranje

Master

2/1975

11/1975

SA Vaal

Master

12/1975

1/1976

Windsor Castle

Master

5/1976

7/1976

Everett F Wells

Master

7/1977

12/1979

Winchester Castle

Master

3/1980

7/1980

Barcelona

Master

10/1980

2/1981

Edinburgh Universal

Master

6/1981

11/1981

Died

18 January 2020

Aged 90

Obituary - The Herald 18 March 2020

ROBERT Royan, who has died aged 90, was the first commodore (navigation) of P&O’s merchant fleet. Born in Elgin, Moray, on January 2, 1930, his first encounters with seafaring included being taking to the launch of the Queen Elizabeth in Glasgow in 1938, listening to the stories of a neighbour whose seafaring career had been undertaken largely on Chinese coasts, and joining the crew of a Lossiemouth fishing boat at weekends.

In 1944, he joined the HMS Conway, a training vessel berthed in the Menai Straits, from where he graduated as the King’s Medal winner two years later. He joined the Clan Line company, partly because its vessels sailed from Glasgow, closer to his Elgin home than Liverpool or London were, and partly because his parents could afford the required uniform.

He joined his first ship, the Clan Cumming, as a cadet in 1946. Then on her maiden voyage, the vessel sailed first to New York, and, via Baltimore and Trinidad, to Madras, with grain to help ease an Indian famine. New York and Madras both made a deep impression on the young man from post-war Scotland: in New York, the Times Square lights and the casual availability of two eggs with breakfast in a diner were astonishing. In Madras, he saw a woman giving birth in the street – an event so shocking that he never told his mother.

Because of the global presence of British shipping during his career, he also found himself on occasion in close proximity to notable events: these included, in Calcutta, Indian Independence; in Bombay, the assassination of Gandhi in New Delhi; in Port Said, the beginnings of the Suez Crisis; in Dar es Salaam, Independence Day in Tanzania, and, in Maputo,the announcing of Mozambique independence by Portugal.

These experiences and their recounting were the means by which his shore-based friends and family understood his career, to the point where he was persuaded to record them (now published as From Cadet to Commodore: The End of a Sea-Going Era), but they were a small part of his professional expertise.

He sailed on all kinds of merchant vessels. Clan Line vessels, often with Indian ratings and British officers, carried a variety of cargoes to many different places. They also sometimes carried passengers, and Royan met his wife, Carol, when she was a passenger on the Clan MacInnes, returning to the UK from South Africa.

Having completed his qualifications up to the level of Master in 1955, Royan progressed slowly through the ranks on different vessels. In 1964, he moved from the Clan Line ships to the Union-Castle mail and passenger ships, serving as Chief Officer and Staff Commander.

Memories of First Trip - 1946

The King’s Gold Medal - 1946

The passage to Calcutta would take about two days due to the shallowness of the river and having to cross a number of sand bars at high water. This pilot would take us to Calcutta port where a docking pilot, British, would dock the ship in Kidderpore Dock. What amazed me on this first call at Calcutta was the routine with the river pilot. When it came to mealtime, when the vessel was underway, the pilot’s bearer would set out a tablecloth on the bridge table with his own set of cutlery and poor him a chota peg of whisky. All this accepted by the ship’s Master as acceptable. The bearer would also check out what was being cooked in the officers’ galley.

By this time however British officers were no longer being recruited for the Bengal Pilot Service. I understand that up until outbreak of war they would offer employment to Conway Boys, with certain conditions. This pilot whose name was Colquhoun as I recall, Chief Officer F H Thornton RNR and Cadet Greenfield as well as myself were all Old Conway’s.”

Bob recalls his last voyage up the river in 1973 as Master of the tanker Hector Heron:

“Needless to say times had changed and the Indian pilot had no bearer and lived like the rest of us. Again it took a long time due to the vessels draught and the pilot reckoned at least two days giving this information to the port authority and our agent. On the first night when we anchored the pilot asked if we had films on board and could he watch one. We had films and he chose one and one of our cadets had the honour of showing it. When we were under way again the pilot said he had enjoyed the film very much and he now thought we could arrive at Calcutta about 12 hours earlier! This information was passed to our agent and port authority. We also had a crew change to make.

On arrival at the tanker berth in the river we had to make fast to buoys using our anchor cables because of the bore that comes up the river at the tide change.However our agents had not informed the Customs of our early arrival or the seamen’s union. The result was that our leaving crew had nobody collecting duty or crew members giving gifts to union officials. Needless to say they made life difficult for the ship despite the fact that it was nothing to do with the ship.

Needless to say we were pleased to sail and I understand that Calcutta as a port for ocean ships has ceased and the river silting up. A new port for deep sea vessels now operates much nearer to the Bay of Bengal.”

Appointed Mailship Master - 1975

Clansman - April 1975

He gained his first command in 1970, on the vessel Nina Bowater, on which he gained proficiency in sailing in ice along the St Lawrence Seaway, and also the experience of stitching a serious neck wound that a sailor had incurred during a dispute on board.

He also commanded two oil tankers, the Hector Heron, an older vessel that he described as ‘showing its age’, and the Everett F Wells, an early supertanker that proved just as challenging as the Hector Heron. He had further voyages as master on the mail ships, prior to the end of the service in 1977, and was the master who took the SA Oranje to scrap in Hong Kong.

He had his first command of a container ship, the MV Barcelona, in 1980, and for the next ten years until his retirement he remained on container vessels: the Barcelona (also known as the Table Bay and the Tolaga Bay) and the Tokyo Bay.

By this point, he had transferred to OCL (Overseas Containers Ltd), later P&O Containers Ltd. Jeffrey Sterling (now Baron Sterling of Plaistow) recognised the value of this fleet to P&O, so decided to appoint Commodores: Royan was appointed the first Commodore Captain in 1988.

Royan was always conscious of the collaborative nature of seafaring. He had nothing but the highest respect for chief engineers and their teams, and was delighted that his promotion to commodore captain was accompanied by the promotion of Robert Gemmell, with whom he had sailed many times, to commodore chief engineer. He was considered to be a good master mariner for the crews serving with him: experienced in the challenges of both navigation and management.

He kept in contact with colleagues during his retirement, attending reunions for the Conway, the Clan Line and Union Castle. He understood himself to have been extremely fortunate in the timing of his career: at its beginning, he had gone to sea with men who had been torpedoed in the war, and by its end, conditions for seafarers were changing radically, the result of containerisation, the development of remote technologies, and the increase of ships sailing under flags of convenience.

Robert Royan was widowed in 2011. He is survived by his two children and four grandchildren.

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