Does anyone remember?

[j.sabourn]

The drinking glasses often sighted on ships which had a Plimsoll mark embossed on the glass with the following freeboard levels marked as for example, can anyone remember. What they really were. I think the only one I am sure about was the Tropical fresh.

WNA Apprentices
W. Deck boys
Summer..A Bs
Tropical Engineers
Fresh. Mates
T.F. Masters and Pigs.

JS

[happy daze john in oz]

Well mate it was like this.
As long as there was the correct amount of fluid in the glass I was not concerned as to what sort of line it had.

In most bars now wins glasses have a line on them, that is the measure for a glass, considered to be one glass at 170 ml.
Which means with their measure there are only 4.4 glasses in a bottle.
How do they manage that, when I drink at home I am lucky to get 3 glasses from a bottle.

Think we are being short changed.

[j.sabourn]

Your problem John is you should just leave it in the bottle and consume direct from , would not have any worries at all at all as an Irishman would say. Would also save on the washing up ! Now with a crystal glass with Samuel Plimsol on the side that gives us the excuse to hold it up to the light and expound your views on its vintage , which I know absolutely nothing about , but makes others think they are talking to an expert , I only know the old price of Dr. Penfolds of years gone by and its high exorbitant price of today. Cheers wonder what a bottle of same brewed today will be worth in 10 years time. Most of us will never know. JS

[Dennis McGuckin]

I remember the Pig on one ship.
We were told to bring our own glasses, and they would be filled for sixpence.
I got hold of a flower vase.
Got away with it, as the barman was a pal of mine.

[j.sabourn]

Tropical Fresh and the least freeboard on the ship, the Pig is a joke and refers to the stamina of the master, every line on the plimsol had some remark , but the master was the only one I can remember. Thought others may of had a better memory than me. It was just a gimmick probably put out by some enterprising ship chandler. JS

[Des Taff Jenkins]

John
Reminded me of an incident, can't remember where, either in Sydney or Melbourne, was painting the plimsole marks, probably with tongue out concentrating, when a tug went racing by, swept the water up to my knees and stuffed up my work. Can now imagine the tug crew laughing their heads off.
Des

[j.sabourn]

Draft figures ,Plimsol marks were always clear and distinct to seafarers of my generation until that ogre the E.U. got their fingers in the pie and had to be metric . I used to think in feet and inches and convert back to metric if at all possible . The charts for instance instead having depths in fathoms and feet went to metres , and a metre was 3 feet 3 and three quarters inches or something similar. Your draft figures were in feet and inches the bottom of the figure represented the depth and each figure 6 “ and the space between 6” and could read at a glance. Then went to metres and decametres , a decametre being one tenth of a metre , what a palaver, your plimsol Lines were all 1 inch thick , can’t even remember what they finished up as .when all your stability books were in feet and inches on older vessels made the job that much more harder. I still think in fathoms and feet , the metric system to me is taboo whenever possible, I would be totally out of place today with today’s generation, just as well made retirement age. JS.

[happy daze john in oz]

Think now all measurements are in metric.
All cruise ships only use that which does confuse some English passengers who have not been converted yet.

As to glasses, well in the "Playhouse' in Durban Ginger though that if we drank the beer from our shoe sit would save the barman work.
We did, and all it got was us chucked out,

The a few years later at my wife's wedding my best man and I though be fun to drink champers from her new shoe.
Not amused, made me buy her a new pair.

[Colin Wood]

I had a nephew staying with me doing the pre sea cause at Launcestion. Took him down to Dalrymple Bay to introduce him to art of draught surveys, low and behold, the ship was an old greek and had draught marks in Imperial on one side and metric on the other. He of course had only known metric, but I being much older had been brought up only using imperial.
He was completely confused, though I explained that the numbers were 6" high etc.
On board all tables in Imperial, and did not have our Imperial draught survey program with me so had to convert metric. Worked well and really impressed him.

[j.sabourn]

#10. Colin I can remember the very first lecture of the pre sea course I did at 15 years of age . It was titled what is a cargo vessel...? ...... lecturer, and you sitting there with pencil and paper poised to take notes , “ It is a vessel built to carry goods from one port to another, and for this purpose it is divided up into compartments called holds divided by walls called bulkheads . .... Already you had more knowledge than the average shore person. As time goes on that knowledge grew and grew, the layman’s ashore stayed static when it comes to ships , they show their total ignorance when someone pointed out how one media representative continued to call a container ship a tanker. A little bit of knowledge was always considered a dangerous thing , but to have no knowledge whatsoever the world at times must be teetering on a knives edge. Cheers JS