T124 Agreements

[Thomas W]

I wonder if someone could tell me please:
It seems there were several different versions of this. The main ones seem to be T124X and T124T. A seaman in TNA BT 390 shows he had a T124T Agreement. - so was he serving in a RN Rescue Tug?
Thank you

Regards
Tony

[Doc Vernon]

As much as i know about this ! I am sure Hugh will read this and tell you more
Cheers
Enlistment type - Sailors, navies and the war at sea - The Great War (1914-1918) Forum (greatwarforum.org)

• The T124X records detail the sea service of merchant seamen who served on Royal Navy ships (or Royal Navy auxiliary vessels).
• The T124T records detail the sea service of merchant seamen who served on tugs.
• Fron the Registry of Shipping and Seaman.

eg Only for interest

The Fourth Service: Cataloguing merchant seamen in the Second World War - The National Archives blog

[j.sabourn]

Maybe. Hugh might also know something about the RMAS as well although I worked alongside of them on their own ships know very little about them. Wages or conditions of service . ( RMAS = Royal Maritime Auxilary Service) the lady barber I go to her father who died a couple of years ago served as Chief engineer with the same based in Portsmouth but also worked on the torpedo ranges up near the Kyle of Loch Alsh , she does all the talking , just as well as I know very little about them , she says he was regular MN before working for the Navy. JS
Naval Party 1007 as have said previously consisted of both RN and MN crews and was my main ship for Nearly 4 years apart from N.Sea vessels during my leave periods which I did emergency relief work if necessary. However I classed NP 1007 as a bareboat charter to the Admiralty , was a very lucrative one at the time for 10 years on 10,000 pounds a day . Don’t know who paid the wages but all replacement of gear and food , fuel etc. was the normal to charterers account . As far as I was concerned the owners of the ship paid the mn crew . if the Navy did it was indeed an extremely lucrative money maker at the time. Cheers JS

[Doc Vernon]

10 years on 10,000 pounds a day

Surely a Typo error JS ??
That equated to some 3.5 Million a Year!??
Cheers

Just of Interest
Royal Maritime Auxiliary Service - Wikipedia

[j.sabourn]

#1 Thomas sea warfare still had some of its roots showing during the Falklands war as still the fleet that went down had the rescue tugs . Think about 4 went down to the South Atlantic. Their reason was expected to be to tow any damaged warships to South Georgia where they hoped to do any repairs to same. They were of course out of the oil industry the newest Wimpey anchor handler was one of them , she later when outdated finished up out here in the offshore oil and gas industry , I had been in Wimpeys before my big leap to Seaforth Maritime so knew some of them . Again Hugh will know more about this as was in the area at the time I believe . JS . Think it was called Wimpey Seahorse . Mickey Slack was the skipper from Lowestoft I believe JS

[j.sabourn]

That’s right Vernon 10,000 pounds a day , 365 days a year x10 will take your word your arithmetic is correct. Some anchor handlers were earning that and more a day. The only difference was they were on the spot market and only earning when working . Why do you think the name of the game in the oil industry was to get the ships and rigs off hire , a rig at the same period of time was on anything around 100,000 pounds a day , hence the reason to get the exploratory hole done and get the rig off hire . They say to this day safety comes first in that case no risks should be taken, Risks were taken every time you put put a ship alongside a rig or platform in anything above calm seas. Seamen earned every penny they got. Cheers JS.
PS you might of had 3 leap years in that 10 years , so hope you have added another 30,000 pounds. Cheers again , give it to the office boy as a bonus ? If today is the same as then all vessels on the spot market and their hire rates should be in the back of Lloyd’s List. JS

[j.sabourn]

A previous post about my working in the shipping office of my employers as my leave ran out and must have been their motto idle hands cause mischief . During my short turn as a clerk I was allowed to see the profit and loss of their various vessels shortly after VE Day. This was contained in an old Charles Dickens type of ledger all hand pen and ink hand written in the old fashioned way for tax returns. I will quote from memory on the deductions seen or the out side . The highest first
Depreciation on the vessels hull and machinery the biggest expenditure of all for the tax claim HMIT
Next Insurances on vessels up to total loss .
Crews Wages.
Crews food.
On the income side of course the freight rates
It was obvious and I was told the same by one of the experts in the office that in 1947 and onwards the average 10,000 ton tramp ship one cargo of grain a year would pay for all its on going expenses for that same year and it was all profit thereafter.
Judging by what I saw in that week alone it was suicide to the industry for the Seamans strike of 1966 to have ever occurred. It would have been advantageous rather to nationalise the merchant navy as a whole . Today when it maybe needed very soon once again .and since it was given away piecemeal when it could of been used to at least pay off the National Debt after the war years , makes absolutely no sense what so ever to me. JS

[Ivan Cloherty]

[COLOR=#333333]10 years on 10,000 pounds a day

Surely a Typo error JS ??
That equated to some 3.5 Million a Year!??
Cheers

JL]

Not unusual Doc, I was chartering ships in the 1970's at £10/15,000 per day, had 22 ships on charter at the same time, big money was involved. Today's rates are around £250,000 per day for slightly larger vessels, oil rigs are in the stratosphere. That's why in chartering every'i' has to be dotted and every 't' crossed and why the opposition tries to introduce ambiguous clauses and every untoward occurrence is logged by the minute

[Hugh]

I wonder if someone could tell me please:
- so was he serving in a RN Rescue Tug?

Hi Tony,
Short answer - we don't know.

CR1 cards were written up ashore by clerks to the Board of Trade. Usually, as well as the T124 reference on the cards, there is the name or number of the ship that the seaman served in. In this case all that is mentioned is T124T, the date and cableship. So it is possible maybe even probable that they used T124T because they didn't know how to classify a cable ship.

Any seaman that served under T124X or T agreements have cards in the National Archives held in BT 390. So any service outside of normal Merchant Navy service would be contained within those cards. Unfortunately, some cards do have very little and indeed some only have a cover with no contents within. If G. Rowland only served on T124 articles then all ships should be in his file - BT 390/174/16 . When he or any seaman reverts to sailing on normal MN articles, then for WW2, their records are held in BT 382 (CRS 10 forms).

Regards
Hugh

[John Arton]

Thomas
My father served on the deep sea rescue tugs from 1941 to 1945, previously he had been serving in the blue star line. His discharge book for that period has the T124t in it covering the whole period, issued in Glasgow. He was initially based in Campbell town and then Milford haven.
Rgds
J.A