Shanghaied
by Published on 22nd May 2022 10:55 AM
Shanghaied
Having not had a Christmas at home for the previous eight years, I was determined to ensure the next Christmas would be at home with family and girl friend.
It was early September and I had a choice of about four ships re-crewing in Salford. The MV British Monarch seemed an ideal option and after a chat with the Mate who told me it was anticipated she would be back in the UK in mid December, I decided this was my best option.
The routine was Salford to Glasgow light ship, full load of scrap for Osaka in Japan. General cargo to Singapore followed by Soya from Singapore
to Liverpool.
Arriving in Clydebank for the scrap, we encountered a dockers strike which continued for the following three weeks. Great start for Christmas!
Eventually we cleared Glasgow and headed south for the Med. Transiting the Suez in the usual convoy, our group anchored in the Great Bitter Lake allowing north bound traffic to pass.
Anchored next to us was a Russian cargo ship which appeared to have a crew of extremely nosey Parker’s or possibly, KGB spies.
Our second mate Dougie Wardrop, who on the previous trip fell overboard whilst trying to read the log and spent eight hours in the Pacific before being picked up, dashed down from the bridge to the focsle where the Bosun and some ABs were working.
“Lads” he said, “let’s give those ruskies something to stare at”
After a little game plan had been organised, the ABs and Bosun kneeled down on the focsle pretending to scrub the deck. The second mate, now with a cap on and a length of rope in his hand screamed “ scrub you bastards, scrub” whilst swinging his rope over their heads. This brought even more Russians to their gunwale to watch the treatment dished out to these poor Capitalists.
It wasn’t too long before we saw a senior Russian officer in full uniform stood rigidly to attention addressing his crew and bellowing at them “Are you appy in your verk, — are you appy in your verk”
Then like a male voice choir and looking over towards our ship, they responded “Ya ve appy in our verk, — Ya ve appy in our verk”
This was repeated several times until they were sure we had had the message.
The reaction this produced on our ship was intoxicating as we rolled on the hatch combings, surrounded by peels of almost uncontrollable laughter.
I guess Dougie had previously treated a Russian ship to this performance.
After a twenty five day passage, we arrived in Osaka to find no available wharfs and had to buoy off in the outer harbour area for a further seven days.
Christmas looking a bit dodgy now!
After the ships agent had gone ashore, the Old Man presented us with the news that the shipping company had signed a contract to supply Guano from the Gilbert Islands to both Aussie and NZ and coal from Aussie to Japan for the next Eighteen months.
Conned and Shanghaied was banded about and all thoughts of Christmas for this and maybe next year, was ditched overboard.
On the completion of the contract we eventually sailed for home via the Panama Canal, arriving of all places, Salford, the port we initially departed from.
I do have a few other interesting tales of the many voyages we undertook between Aussie, NZ the South Pacific islands and Japan which I will pass on later.
