Very cold Hands!

[Ivan Cloherty]

Inspecting the internals of double bottom tanks whilst ships hauled up on Waalhaven slipway anytime November through March, dressed only in a boiler suit, covered in frozen slime, oil sludge, other niceties whilst crawling through holes of 24 inch diameter and then doing the same backwards through hundreds of feet of frozen steel (ah! the glamour of it all) Trawling up near Bear Island wasn't too warm either, but I was younger then, excited and enthralled never seem to feel the cold. Chingwangtao in January wasn't a bundle of fun, standing on deck for hours whilst the Chinese in their kapock suits inspected the vessel on arrival and sailing. But eh! oh! we went back for more! and looking back basically we never regreted it, all part of our very broad learning curve and we were better people because of it (I hope)

[Captain Kong]

Sailing round Cape Horn in mid winter was extremely cold, when completely schooner rigged.
Using a blanket off the bunk to wrap around and a kapok life jacket on to keep the wind out. The freezer hatches were actually warmer than the deck. and we were coated with frost. Fortunately the weather was good
Cheers
Brian .