Deep sea.

In my time at sea-1962-68, any trip outside a semi-circle from the Bay of Biscay round to the top of Norway was classed as Deep Sea, and qualified in full for time towards your ticket. Inside those limits was classed as Home trade which only counted as half time ticketwise. It had nothing to do with depth of water.
Many thanks to all contibuters on this site, I thoroughly enjoy reading them, and the memories they bring back.

Another description was foreign going or coasting , coasting over the years became to include the near European countries , which when considered were still really foreign country’s and thank God are still are by a few lines in law put back into perspective by people, with a bit of common sense . JS.

Being ex Bank Line engineer, I would say 99.999% of our voyages were "deep sea". To translate for you Deck Officers, I would say when you used to shoot the sun at noon to see where you were was deep sea without present day satellites etc.
For engineers, when you came on deck after your watch just to see that dead straight wake over your beer can and not see land for two to three weeks until you hit Magellan Straits and went on 6 on 6 off watches...that was deep sea.

Its when your feet cant touch the bottem}}}}:cool:

One final comment on this thread. I went deep sea on my second trip, 16 yrs and 3 months. Went to the pool on the Broomielaw, " The Defoe, where's it going"? "The River Plate". "The River Plate, eh! The Battle of the River Plate...I'll take it" Hadn't a clue where that was, fell in love with BA after that. I went there about 5 years ago on business and on the flight there, I wondered if it would hold the same allure as it did back in '64. Believe me it did, it's still one of my favourite places in the world to visit.
Needless to say, I lost my cherry in Monte, another good run ashore (well it was that night).

I was there in 54 and wasn’t too long after Eva Peron had died and the city was still in extended mourning. I was always impressed by the cleanliness of the city itself , until I learned in later years how that cleanliness was maintained with the assistance of mainly the British Merchant Service. Cheers JS

Once again as regarding the term deep sea which was also a term referring to foreign trade . The British merchant navy was run on fhe principle of seatime for certificates and the normal. Promotion of seafarers. The 2 most important certificates were Foreign going and Home Trade. As said in previous posts those coming through the ranks in those days had to have sea time in and these amounts were stipulated in the examinations for masters and mates. Full seatime could only be gained by foreign going or deep sea trade. I think but not sure but coasting Time was only allowed at 50 % of foreign trading. There was no solar or stellar navigation paper for Home Trade plus a few other subjects such as maths I believe but for surety one would have to check with the regulations at the time. Since then the system is different. Some would say for the better, others think different. JS

Starting working life for British Rail Marine on their ships as an apprentice fitter. If you got the the opportunity to sail on one of the coastal companies, that was considered home trade. The next step was to join a foreign trading ship and that was considered as deep sea. KR

If I recall many of the posts in a discharge book said 'Home Trade'.

Though on UCL it may well have said 'Homo trade".

I think there are a lot of answers (we've all been reading them!). I recall having a "chinese" in Liverpool's chinatown with my dad and a few of his officers,He and they were MacAndrew mediterranean men, me Blue Funnel Far East. One of the guys mentioned during our meal (chosen by me) that he regarded me as a Deep Sea man, but he never really came up with how they regarded the Med. Possibly because I was crossing oceans and away longer, they were home every two weeks or so.
Ian McKinlay