Ship / Shop.

[j.sabourn]

To steer. The course away from sextants which is a designated post on its own , as regarding such theGerman one was the Plathe, this maybe spelt wrong.
Re Zippos and other articles such as clothing such as sweat shirts and pullovers and other articles such as ships shields as mementos and anything else that grabbed the imagination.
Most naval ships had some enterprising Individual who would take orders for such , whether he did this through the Naafi or not I don’t know. Some was very good stuff , I had a sweater with the ships crest on from 40 years ago as good as new and was made in Scotland. Today however seems to have shrunk . JWS

[happy daze john in oz]

John there is a reason for shrinkage in clothing.
Many clothes spend the winter months in hibernation in a wardrobe and in that environment get no sunlight.
This causes the material to shrink so when it comes out again in spring it no longer fits.

[j.sabourn]

Pleased to hear that , thought as according to the wife it was something I ate. Nothing to do with my obesity as she calls it then. Cheers JS

[Ivan Cloherty]

Every deep sea ship I sailed on had a slop chest (for non seafarers 'shop') and depended on Master and Ch Steward what it was stocked with, but it was always useful if you passed thro Panama Canal, as if articles bought thro the slop chest, rather than purchased ashore in Panama, they were duty free and we took advantage of the system for buying USA made Khakis, shirts, shorts, slacks, Arrow white shirts, Jeans, always beautifully tailored compared to UK uniforms. Orders were usually radioed ahead for delivery on board if only transiting and not berthing. In Hong Kong of course the tailors came aboard in the evening with bolts of cloth which you could buy by the yard (not a metre in site!) or choose your cloth, get measured and your new suit, a perfect fit, was delivered next morning, ell deck mates and engineers got tailored boiler suits, which were much more comfortable than the baggy things we normally wore, and you could specify what pockets you wanted, as deck/engine/leckies all had different requirements...….those were the days and lets not forget the Safari suits

[j.sabourn]

What did you do with your rag bag apparel Ivan .Hope you passed it on to some deserving character and not some little rich kid. Cheers JS

[Ivan Cloherty]

What did you do with your rag bag apparel Ivan .Hope you passed it on to some deserving character and not some little rich kid. Cheers JS

According to my wife I'm still wearing it!

[John Arton]

Canadian Pacific had a range of clothing such as sweaters, sweat tops, tee shirts etc all emblazoned with the house flag, only problem was they all came in a vivid green colour. Stolts also had a range of clothing good quality cotton tees and sweat shirts, Polo shirts, in white with just a small logo on them. They also had shiny bomber jackets and baseball caps which used to go down well with the Filipino crew. Both C.P. and Stolts sold them at cost. Stolts jacket and cap made you look a bit of a Pratt in my view, the baseball cap is a pet hate of mine as you see so many youngsters today seem to have them permanently attached to their head, whether indoors or outdoors making them look even bigger Pratt's than they are, the fashion police should throw them all in jail in my opinion.
When sailing always liked to have the slop chest to contain some goodies such as chocolate etc. Cadbury chocolate being a particular favourite amongst the Russian officers though one of my Belgium swing partners managed to stuff the slop chest with around a 1000 packets of chewing gum,
Rgds
J.A.