Sharp knives

Quote:

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Originally Posted by happy daze john in oz

Like so many threads it has moved on to other areas where similar events happen, nothing wrong with that.
Some of us at sea were lucky enough not to have been injured in a bad way, others not so lucky, but many of my cuts occurred once ashore.
Interesting to see however the number and type of other accidents and injuries effected ashore.

Only those who have been to sea can understand the nature of men who begin on one ost and wander of so far, but when out in the middle of the ocean what else is there to do?

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Made me think of cook with a badly burnt hand ,hurricane in the gulf , galley aft and jumping up and down , cook was doing his best , pots were jumping the fiddles , so stove on , if it stuck to the plates you could have it , steak , chops , gammon etc , flip it, grab sliced bread hot food , we were pitching , the thing turned , pitching turned into a roll ,cook lost his footing , braced himself on the stove top , all medical stuff stowed midships , flying bridge awash , he spent two days wearing wet towels as gloves , how do you risk assess that

Rob
The H.S.E. would probably say the galley should have been shut down in weather conditions such as you were experiencing at the time. Everyone could have lived on sarnies and toast.
Oh, cutting bread for carnies...very dangerous, therefore should have a standby supply of sliced bread.
Sandwich fillers, cutting meat or cheese for sandwich, very dangerous, should have had a ready supply of cut meats, cheeses, etc. on hand for such eventuality.
Then again
Hurricane warning, ship should have deviated far away from any of the effects of the hurricane.
Yeah, right on Mr. H.S.E.
Rgds
J.A.

we could not get to he shop for the sliced bread , Gulf of Mexico , in transit Nigeria -Port Harcourt to Port Arthur Tx , hurricane was going to mexico , we were two days out , Texas , shut the ports we were left in the middle of it , Galley was too dangerous to use , cook was a star tried to provide hot food , we were in it four days , Mate rang the bosun on day two , can you just nip up the flying bridge with a couple of loaves , some butter , meat etc , Old Man , three mates , sparky , chef steward , two QMs had no food , the flying bridge was washed , NO way learn how to diet . nowadays would have had one accommodation , and microwave

Our Cook was killed in the Galley.
from the story of the BEECHFRILD IN 1952.....................

The Captains way of navigating to Belfast or to the North of that would be ""Keep it on this magnetic course and if you see a light ahead it would be the Isle of Man so bring her round to port and when the light is abaft the Starboard beam bring her round to the next course, I will see you tomorrow," then all hands would turn in, I would be up there for about ten hours clinging to a spinning wheel, the sea, hail, snow and rain blinding my eyes, soaking wet and hands frozen to the wheel.
[ open bridge, no wheelhouse.]
During one of these storms after leaving Derry, with big heavy seas and swell coming in from the North Atlantic, the Cook got burned to death, A large pan of chip fat was flung off the stove and went all over him when the ship took a big roll, and then it burst into flames when some went onto the galley fire and he became a ball of flame and collapsed on deck into the scupper screaming his last.
The Cook was dying in the scuppers, blackened by the flames, the Second Engineer caught sight of him leaping about and then collapsing. He got a bucket of water and flung it over him to dowse the flames but it was too late. He had gone to where all good Cooks and not so good Cooks go to, that great Galley, with unlimited stores, in the sky.
All this time the wind was blowing a hooley and seas crashing over the decks.
We had to pick him up and we laid him on the hatch, Captain Marshall certified him dead. He told us to lash him on the hatch, a line around his wrists and ankles and star shaped, he said the salt spray, would keep him fresh and stop him from stinking. He looked gruesome lying there especially at night his head moving backwards and forwards with the ship rolling. He stayed there until we arrived in Liverpool two days later. A Policeman and an undertaker came down and took him away.
The Mad Irishman would sit on the hatch and have some terrific arguments with the dead Cook, and became angry when the Cook was ignoring him.
The Captain told me I was to be the Cook, until they got a replacement but I still had to do the night watches on the wheel. There was not enough food to go round, what the Cook had done with the food money no one knew, but he had a few empty whisky bottles in his bunk.
On those Coasters, known as Weekly Boats, you got paid weekly and out of your wage you had to pay the Cook for the food every Friday, and then he went ashore shopping including getting drunk in the alehouse on the way.
I was knackered doing the night watch as well as Cooking, but a few days later he found some dead beat `Cook` from somewhere.