Chief Stewards Info

[j.sabourn]

Ref above believe farthings were still in circulation, or maybe just out as legal tender. Halfpennys still i though. Was bad enough as mate working out in longhand every week for 15 men on different rates at 3/6d an hour or 46.5 hours at 4/2 halfpenny an hour or whatever rate it was. Makes me aware of how easy most at sea now have it. The shipowner certainly got his money worth out of us in the old systems. Dont think some of todays up and coming future leaders ashore or afloat would have the mental ability to cope. Is probably the main reason why our pollys are such a bunch of plonkers. Probably their private tutors and Public Schools such as Eton probably think it is below what they need in their carved out in advance careers. Cheers

[Ivan Cloherty]

#21 Remember being brought back down to earth when I got my first position as Supt and told by the owner to check the Portage Bills of 22 ships, he told me that's the best way you will get to know your Captains, found out after some time that he was wrong, but did find out that some Masters were good at accounts, some weren't and some couldn't give a sh*t one way or the other. But it did keep me busy for weeks (with my other jobs) with Pounds Shillings and pence and trying to reconcile all the various rates. Wasted a lot of valuable time chasing halfpennies around pieces of paper when I could have been more gainfully employed, but who was right and who was wrong, probably him, as he was the millionaire and I definitely wasn't! and still am not!

[j.sabourn]

Ivan, one definite way of making money if so inclined, was to draw say 5 or 10,000 dollars in the U.S. for ships disbursments. Retain in Safe. Ship goes toIndia. Change US dllars for at least twice the official rate, and use as subs. The difference a plus on the portage account and hence going to the masters pocket if so inclined. Have also said before when storing on the Continent money was drawn from the local agent, there was always either 5 or 10 per cent discount for cash, this also would appear on the portage account as a positive to the master. This is how ships were run on the Hong Kong system a monthly portage account. Feeding the ship was done also with cash, the head of each dept. the bosun, the no. 1 motorman/fireman, and the ch. stwd. used to receive cash in hand every month to go and buy their food. The Ch. Stwd as I saw used to distribute the cash for the catering staff to each and they used to feed off the mates and engineers, some British coasters also worked on this feeding systemwhere the master bought the food for the whole ship. On the Hong Kong Articled ships the chief steward had more or less to buy the job from his predessor, so whatever was in the ship usually nothing, but on paper may have been a 1000 dollars,of stores he had to buy, and either make up on the paperwork or pass on to the next bloke who wasnt due for a couple of years in theory. All Chinese crews accepted this as their life. Even their first months wages which went back to the crew agencies and boarding housekeepers. Those who say there were standards as the IntenationalSeamensunions as said before I never saw, was a myth with most Hong Kong ships. Cheers John S

[j.sabourn]

Addittional to above. Even in the 80"s as master before all the hoo hah about drink on ships, working in the North Sea, if went to the continent used to draw the money and buy a bond. Previous to buying though used to ask everyone what they wanted. Used to sell back to them at exactly what was bought for. Every ship had a monthly portage account of sorts, but your wages didnt rely on the same as the Hong Kong system. On the Hong Kong system monthly in the right hand column was your salary. I think when most owners found out certain things they immediately took over as much of the paperwork concerning cash as they could as were not averse to making extra money themselves. If you worked in the East you know yourself the amount of honesty that prevailed. Cheers JS

[Ivan Cloherty]

#23 and #24 Sometimes John, you wonder why you remained honest, was it because you could sleep at night, well that didn't work as developed tinitus. Having lived in Pakistan and Middle East found that honesty was only ever found in the dictionary by the people you were dealing with, or lived amongst but I never let their way of life influence mine. Found that you could trust the indigenous UAE citizen if dealing with them direct, but in the 70's when the land was being infiltrated by their close neighbours from East and West and they became complacent and handed over management to these other people you could no longer do business worth hundreds of thousands of dollars with a handshake and had to make sure that every 'i' was dotted and every 't' crossed in watertight contracts. Looking back on a 60 year working life and all the money I could have made by opportunities handed to me on a plate, but still didn't succumb, was I right or wrong, I still don't know. But if you can lie and cheat, blow people up and still go to paradise and have 70 virgins perhaps I was wrong, don't suppose I'll ever find out! because the hereafter may all be a myth, but I won't change.

[j.sabourn]

Thats Why I say knowing what I do now, if had the time over again would maybe have second thoughts. Regardless of sometimes my outspoken manner on here, I always put the owners interest second after life itself, and they always got a square deal from me, whether they knew it or not. However cant say it was reciprocated from their end. Cheers JS

[John Arton]

Regarding the Ships Captain Medical Certificate. If you had done the same Certificate in Norway you would have been trained up to the level a Paramedic and been allowed to use a de-fibulator, set broken bones etc. Much higher level of competence required than that of the U.K. Now all standardised under STCW.
The only time I had to give an injection on board occurred on a Panamax bulker with Indian crew who had just joined in North Europe. After sailing in ballast the crew were engaged in sorting out the three months stores we had received in port. This ship had a big central stores room built into the accommodation block. She was a standard B and W built Panamax and very nice too. Amongst all the stores were new mooring ropes and the deck crew were engaged in hauling two of them forward. To make it easier they had taken a light runner all the way forward and after attaching on end to the mooring rope, were using the fwd winches to haul the rope fwd and stow it in the fwd rope store. The guy feeding the new mooring line off the rope reel managed to get his leg trapped in the bight of rope and dragged up against the accommodation bulkhead, breaking his leg. I was in my cabin when I got the call that an accident had occurred, I was mate at the time. I dashed down to the scene to see this wafer thin Indian Sailor lying on deck with his leg at a very strange angle. I told the crew to go and get the stretcher whilst I went to tell the Captain what had happened and to get the key for the medical cabinet with the morphine in it as I reckoned that he would need morphine to kill the pain before we moved him. On returning to the accident site there was no sight of the casualty or any crew member. Had a miracle occurred and had he made a miraculous recovery I thought? I set off in search of him and found him being hauled by his crew mates into the hospital, two decks up and around a couple of corners. They had done this without use of a stretcher yet throughout he had hardly made a sound. I got him settled in the hospital and then got ready to inject him with the morphine prior to bandaging him up in the prescribed way to immobilise his limbs for evacuation by helicopter to hospital. Bandages around the thighs, knees, and ankles with plenty of padding with the ankles bandage done in figure of eight, as per the Ships Captain Medical Guide.
We had just got him turned face down in order to give him the injection in his buttocks when the Captains wife appeared, asking if I needed any help. Thinking that she must have been a nurse prior to marriage and thus have a better knowledge of giving injections, I handed the needle to her. She looked at me in horror, asking me what I was doing and I said that as she was a nurse, she would be better at giving the injection. This is when I found out that she had not been a nurse previous to marriage, just a barmaid in the Captains local and he had sent her down just to hold the poor guys hand whilst we attended to him.
This left me with the task so after doing the mental dividing up of this guys buttocks I proceeded to attempt to give him the injection in the right upper quadrant. Imagine my horror when I found that due to his long time on leave as he had not paid J.M. Baxi the dropsy to get another ship, he was so skinny that he had next to no flesh on his buttocks and what flesh there was like leather. I was terrified that if I pushed to hard the needle would break but eventually got it in to what I thought was a sufficient depth and pressed the plunger. To my horror all I saw was a blister building up around where the needle entered his skin as the morphine just sat under his skin rather than being absorbed into his flesh. Withdrawing the needle some of the fluid started leaking out so like the little Dutch boy, I stuck my finger over the injection site until the fluid eventually got absorbed into his flesh. Throughout all of this the guy had never made any complaint or moaned he was in pain. After I had checked with him that the morphine had taken effect I then proceeded to straighten his legs and bandage them up correctly to immobilise them prior to putting him in the Niel Robertson stretcher for helicopter evacuation. On standing back to admire my work I had the horrible thought that in immobilising his leg and lashing them together, I had inadvertently turned his broken leg through 360 degrees as the skin on his thigh and lower leg was all twisted and distorted. Turned out that I had not but that as a child he had suffered from Ricketts.
We eventually got him into the stretcher along with all the required paper work and into a Spanish medi-vac helicopter. We were just off Finisterre at the time. The medics on the copter checked him over, said we had done a good job, loaded him into the copter in the stretcher and off he went to hospital where he made a full recovery and was eventually repatriated home to India. We never got our stretcher back and so our medical chest was below statutory requirements and what a hassle that caused with our contracted medical chest outfit, West's of Liverpool?, trying to get them to send us a new stretcher and the reason why we needed one.
rgds
JA

[j.sabourn]

Was going ashore with the old man in Moji, after the ship just coming out of drydock, when this jap came running up saying as far as i could make out that one of them had fallen down the hold. The old man said go and see what the problem is mate and hurry up as was keen to get ashore. Went down No. 3 hatch and on top of the steel tank top was this crumpled up figure, felt for a throat pulse, was obviously dead so told the other Jap he was kaput. Went up and rejoined the old man at top of gangway, he said if hes dead thats their problem shouldnt be on the ship in any case and we continued on our way ashore. Next day the old man only had to write a letter of condolence to his family. They were on the ship at their own risk and were trespassing.If a man is dead he is dead and there is nothing you can do about it. I learnt that very early at sea. 1

[j.sabourn]

#28... For some reason this post disappeared, and cant remember what I had left to say. Cheers JS

[happy daze john in oz]

Being chief steward on liners may have been very different to that on cargo or tankers.
Their position was varied in many ways, responsible for all catering crew and ordering and supply of stores. But they were also responsible for keeping costs down and paid commision on what they saved the company. To achieve that it often meant that the bloods had to go without, wingers ahd to become magicians to satisfy the needs of them. One particualr item alwasy in short supply, dry tea, there must have been a good outlet for it somewhere else for it to be so scarce. Breakfast in tourist only saw streaky bacon, and eggs, boiled or fried maybe even poached but scrambled, never!!!