Originally Posted by
j.sabourn
There was only one time I was really worried about a ship , as knew I could do nothing about it , it was regarding the stability of the vessel and had no early control on it . Was mate and as mate responsible for the stowage of various general and bulk cargoes . She had been under various foreign flags and I suspected she had been sabotaged at various times as all liquid soundings on vessel never gave a true reading and this included the fuel tanks and in any loaded condition the vessel never seemed to have a positive GM , she was always at the angle of loll , alright on paper calculations but were not apparently true. I finished up walking off in Japan thinking it may have stopped the vessel , no such luck , I finally got home mentally agitated for a few weeks , never heard anymore and was sure the vessel must have gone down . It was not until joining this site just over 30 years later that I learned she had gone to the knackers yard about 3 months after I left. Sometimes the mental strain is as bad as the physical in seagoing , I never wanted to know what had happened after I left as didn’t want any thoughts of guilt whatsoever. Only by seeing a picture of the ship on this site and her short history after I left did it lift a load off my mind at various times. JS .