Wasted Man Hours ?

[John Albert Evans]

I was galley boy on the San Fernando an Eagle Oil Tanker and worked bye on her in Cammel Lairds, Birkenhead 1957. I was bored so I painted my cabin, it was single berth as far aft as you could get and all metal. When the dockers found out I'd painted it they almost all came out on strike for me doing their job.(Needless to say they would never have painted my cabin in a million years) that was my first run in with the unions.It was around the same time they all came out on strike because a crew member flicked the white chalk line on a deck i sem to remember. The good old days

JAE

[Jim Brady]

Albi,your quite right about stewards painting the accommodation.On the King boat I was knocking out £10.00 p.w. @four bob an hour that equates to 50 hours p.w. ovies.We were on the obligatory 3 a day and I think we got overtime then for weekends.Plus the fact the other stewards dropped out of the painting so I was doing it on my own,so doing the saloon deckhead for argument sake may take me 2 hours 8 bob which was nothing,I would say to the Chf Stwd it must be worth 6 hours which I used to get.
I also painted on deck on a tanker,we were given the worst jobs like laying on our backs painting underneath the flying bridge.So here is a question for our tanker men,I have thought about this in only recent years.Could the grating on the flying bridge not've been unsrewed to give access to what required painting in that area paint the underside of the grating and replace,or was that to easy as the thread title says Wasted Man Hours!!!!
Regards.
Jim.B.

[alf corbyn]

i was a bedroom steward on the durban castle, which sailed out of london. if you cleaned the portholes in kgv they were black again within an hour because of the stagnant water, so i used to clean my four portholes then cover them in clear varnish which would stay on until we made capetown. then repeated until maybe aden. stewards made quite a bit of overtime painting officers and engineers cabins and all the other catering accommadation. on the athel viscount the chief steward was screwed by the standby chief steward over stores etc. he stole not only ciggies and spirits but linen and food. and we were helping him to cover this by painting and washing dirty linen, and it ended with the whole crew helping. i must put that story on the site.

[Tony Morcom]

On my first ship which carried 13 passengers on the South America / UK route, only the four cadets were allowed to touch the brass ports and varnished taff-rails around the bridge and passenger deck area. This seemingly never ending task was carried out whenever the mate could find nothing better for us to do. The last trip I did on her, sailing under a new mate had us varnishing the ports after a thorough buffing of the brass. I often wondered how long that varnish coating lasted if at all. I suspect that it was a hell of a job to remove it later. After that every ship I was on had the ports painted which admittedly didn't look as good but saved considerable man~hours. It was not the most pleasant job of my cadetship but newly polished brass ports, varnished taff-rails and holystoned deck boards was a stunning effect on that ship.

[Keith Tindell]

As a bridge boy on the Stirling Castle, in port i was given the job of cleaning the steam whistle, they hung a sign in the bridge to say working on the whistle, did not fill me full of confidence as the whistle was making hissing noise etc, needless to say it did not get much of a job done on it. If someone had pulled the lanyard, i would have s*** myself KT

[John Arton]

First trip cadet, first job, polish the brass on the magnetic compass on the monkey island and the brass clocks etc. in the wheelhouse. Then oil the bridge wing wooden taffrails.
Lovely jobs, all outdoors and when you had finished them, did'nt they look good.
This stayed with me throughout my time at sea and even as Master I could be found polishing brass or stripping off painted taffrails etc, sanding them down and oiling them. It was just something that I thought showed your pride in your ship and often received favourable comments from class surveyors, vetting inspectors etc which went a long way to making the surveys and inspections that much easier.
Jim
regarding the gratings on fling bridges on tankers. Painting pipelines underneath them was another job I had as cadet and I too thought of removing them to make the task easier. The ship was less than a year old at the time so it should have been an easy peasy job....not. Even after such a short period the bolts holding them down were rusted in place and there were hundreds of them, so soon gave up that idea.
When I was Master we replaced the gratings on the fling bridge on a couple of my ships and used GRP gratings held in place by special clips made of either stainless steel or coated metal, dead easy to remove. I have also seen flying bridges on tankers covered in plywood but thought that was a bit too dangerous.
Going back to my painting pipelines escapades, after one days painting I'm not too sure what had the most paint on, the pipelines or me!!!!painting pipelines in the tropics in shorts only was a sure fired way to get yourself in line for a paraffin shower!!
rgds
Capt. John Arton (ret'd)

[Don Rafferty]

As a bridge boy on the Stirling Castle, in port i was given the job of cleaning the steam whistle, they hung a sign in the bridge to say working on the whistle, did not fill me full of confidence as the whistle was making hissing noise etc, needless to say it did not get much of a job done on it. If someone had pulled the lanyard, i would have s*** myself KT

I went from Deck Boy to SOS on the Orcades, so at some point I must have polished every bit of outside brasswork on her.

On the bridge there was a dedicated locker for the whistle cleaning gear, which you couldn't access without first removing two signs which had to be hung over the buttons for the whistles. Think I was probably JOS before being 'allowed' to do the whistles.

[j.sabourn]

Keith they should have shut the steam supply off before you tried cleaning. Supply to such was usually shut off in any case on Ocean Passages to save on water loss etc. This though would probably be contavening the safety rules now. However as most ships nowadays have electric hooters, this problem would never arise nowadays. Cheers John Sabourn

[happy daze john in oz]

On the Windsor in the officers accomodation, boat deck, there was a brass expansion plate across the entire deck. As officers stewards we were expected to brasso it. I was not keen as it moved, quite violently at times, but Gimger he was game for it. No not that type of game tit was his hair colour, and there he was. polishing away until he lost the tip of his finger when the plate opened and closed. Completely stuffed his nose picking I can tell you.

[Neil Morton]

I am sitting here with discharge book in hand studying all ships I sailed in. Do you know there is not one in which I was asked to wield a paint brush. Think of all the overtime I missed. Now soogie that's another kettle of fish. i washed bulkheads from Wellington to Southhampton in another life.