captains rounds

[John Gill]

Sunday was usually a day to be dreaded----skippers inspection. while serving as assistant engineers steward aboard the Carinthia in the '60s, i received some good advice on how to deal with that dreaded day. The formidable Captain 'danny' Marr would sweep into my domain on the boat deck looking for trouble. the trick was usually to place in full view a full ash tray of discarded fag ends. he would pounce on that and shout a bit, then satisfied that his presence had been justified, would continue on his way in triumph with his entourage streaming behind with barely a glance at the rest of the accommodation.

[Doc Vernon]

Doesnt sound like he was a very nice guy!
Oh well at least your trickery worked,but did it do the trick all the time! Mmmm!!

Cheers

[Neil Morton]

Without captain's rounds to keep us all on our toes I think we would have taken to many short cuts.I did three very long trips on Port Line cargo/passenger ships as "Tiger" and believe you me every day was "rounds" day.I seemed to be under the eagle eyed skipper every time I turned to.

[Les Woodard]

I wonder if they still do the inspections today I doubt it but it certainly kept us all on our toes and the ships were always clean. Especially as all pipe work and wiring was exposed not like the formica cabins that came along later on.

[happy daze john in oz]

Captains inspection as a winger was always a bloody nightmare, it was impossible to satisfy the buggers. UCL had the captains take special courses in this I think. Skippers like Swivel eye Lloyd who wore white gloves to see the amount of dust around.

[Capt Bill Davies]

Gentlemen,

You should be happy you were not in Blue Funnel where inspections were held every morning at 10:00hrs, Sundays excluded. I assume it was like that in similar British liner companies.

Bill

[Ivan Cloherty]

Gentlemen,

You should be happy you were not in Blue Funnel where inspections were held every morning at 10:00hrs, Sundays excluded. I assume it was like that in similar British liner companies.

Bill

Hi Bill

We had similar in PSNC and personally I didn't mind as I sailed and shared a cabin with some mucky buggers in the 50's at least it kept them on their toes, except when the others didn't pull their weight we all got it in the neck. There was no need for some of the slovenley attitude of some of our shipmates. We had one particular obnoxious cabin mate who thought showers were built for others, so we took him on deck naked and hosed him down, he used the shower after that.

I think most on board regardless of rank welcomed the Captain's rounds not all Captains were good but I would say most were reasonable and genuinley interest in their crews welfare as much as they could be constrained by the ships they were on and companies served. Also we all knew where we stood watching today's documentaries on shipboard life seems to me discipline and respect seems to have gone out the porthole, I hope I'm wrong.

[Louis the Amigo]

Hi shipmates, I loved captains inspection every sunday morning we got payed overtime on some ships for cleaning our cabin and doing the dobby the oldman on most ships was allways a gentleman in them days Allway like sundays at sea, Had a good cooked dinner and would worked overtime if possiable? Bring back L.O.S.

[Pete Leonard (Bruno)]

I seem to remember in my days with P&O captains rounds were not always on the same day. They would vary it with the idea that it kept everyone on their toes. The way to take the sting out of it was, as has been previously suggested, to give them something to find, then they were happy. There is always the legendary story of the skipper who carried a pocketfull of old pennies which he would place on pipes or in the web of steelwork. Obviously if the penny was still there on the next visit that part had not been cleaned. One of the lads twigged this and passed the word around, so on the next rounds what he found when he looked for his pennies was two ha'pennies.
Cheers
Pete

[John Gill]

true, vernon------- used to vary the procedure of deception, sort of 'horses for courses' with whoever was conducting the inspection. Cleaning the brass scuttles up on the boat deck was one of the duties we had to perform. trick was then, especially if it was blowing half a gale out there, was to place a box of brasso,cleaning rags etc in a prominent position in the path of the inspection party and hope for the best. didn't always work but worth a try.