Crew linen issue.

Remember one of my duties as a cadet was going around the accommodation whilst in certain ports (Buenaventura comes to mind) to ensure that crew cabin doors were locked and advising the bosun of same if any unlocked so that he could advise the forgetful crew member(s), this was a practice I carried on as 3rd mate in other companies if subsequent vessel(s) did not carry cadets. All the ships I sailed on the crew had cabin keys and on paying off these were handed into heads of department such as bosun, donkeyman, 2nd steward, who then dished them out to new crews joining, don't remember linen being involved. As cadets when paying off we had to leave our cabins spotless and bunks made up with fresh linen ready for the next slave labourers joining.

morning jim same sort of racket in the old avonmoor john s was also in her only it was the steering gear ...you could tell who was at the wheel judder judder judder but soon just didn't hear it as the brain gotused to it same as a galley boy on a shell tanker after a while didn't notice it had other things to think about regards cappy

ivan it is interesting to hear you call young persons cadets.....as ialways knew them as apprentices but an older ships master although talking about himself always ses apprentice and yet calls his trainee officers cadets I wonder when the change came .......whats in a name.....I must say I favour apprentice do young cadets still sign indentures perhaps that is the reason ,,,,,regards cappy

Hi Cappy, Apprentices signed Indentures staying with one company and never had the names of the ships served upon entered into their Discharge Books (all wrong in my opinion), instead they were written onto the back of the Indenture at completion of Apprenticeship. Cadets were free to move from Company to Company, in theory, but never met any who did, but they did get their ships entered into their Discharge Books. I know apprentices in PSNC never got paid overtime (we would have been the richest on board!!) but cadets in Ropners did get paid overtime and generous amounts to boot.

I think 'Cadet!' became a general name aboard all ships as it was easier to shout than 'Apprentice!'

Unless of course in the likes of Blue Funnel where you were called a midshipman. What a load of silly nonsense when in actual fact it was cheap labour. As in another post I believe a first year apprentice was classed as a JOS and the ranks for the manning scale were the same as the deck crowd, a 4th. year apprentice who probably had a lifeboat ticket was classed as an AB or EDH without boat ticket, so was one less proper wage to pay. Elder Dempsters I believe insisted all their Cadets/Apprentices did their EDH ticket in their 3 year at sea as did a lot of other companies. Runcimans always carried 4 apprentices, nowadays that would be a full crew for a lot of ships. Cheers John Sabourn

Cappy Ivan has just mentioned another difference at that time between an apprentice and a cadet. An apprentice did not leave the ship, any leave (if he got any) was at the whim of the Master, which was very rare, who else was going to pull the flags up and down in port and switch the floodlights on/off. Act as nightwatchman and be at the beck and call of the mates, after the usual chipping and painting and other shipboard duties which carried on whether a crew were there or not. You don't think the likes of Runcimans carried apprentices for benevolence. After 4 years you were told to come back after you had got your second mates certificate, if you were fortuanate enough to get. Just maybe they might have a 3rd. mates job for you. Only after obtaining such would they pay you 3 months certificate leave for your mates certificate 2 years later. I think the dole payed you for 12 weeks only and some had to go back to sea on a higher seamans wage to try again and have the money to be able to stay ashore. Let me also say that Runcimans also insisted you go on the dole when on leave for higher certs. and made up the difference to the full wage. Also this I believe at the time made them not liable for NHI contributions. Some of us say the good old British Shipowner, others tell the truth. Cheers John Sabourn

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Originally Posted by j.sabourn

Cappy Ivan has just mentioned another difference at that time between an apprentice and a cadet. An apprentice did not leave the ship, any leave (if he got any) was at the whim of the Master, which was very rare, who else was going to pull the flags up and down in port and switch the floodlights on/off. Act as nightwatchman and be at the beck and call of the mates, after the usual chipping and painting and other shipboard duties which carried on whether a crew were there or not. You don't think the likes of Runcimans carried apprentices for benevolence. Cheers John Sabourn

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John sounds like a carbon copy of my time, except a J.O.S. was on something like £4 a week and I was on £6 a month. Also in PSNC wasn't just a case of switching the floodlights on and off, the deck ones had to be taken out of the masthouse and raised on the yardarms of the mast for'ard, brackets on the Sampson posts, mast table on the mainmast, and all taken down again at dawn and stowed in the masthouse, what a load of bluddy nonesense and a waste of time. The only permanent floodlights were on the funnel and they had to be switched on first and off last, you could hardly miss the funnel anyway being bright yellow, even the dockside lights lit it up without floodlights. Eh but why waste cheap labour, all apprentices/cadets in so called Liner companies were cheap labour, except of course Blue Flue, and another company whose name I cannot remember when the earstwhile person wrote in of his apprentice days and complained that he was woken every morning at 0630 by the steward bringing him tea and toast at that early hour and the apprentices 'smoko's' were also brought by the stewards together with their tabnabs. Indian crew of course, may be wrong but the name Strick Line comes to mind.

Indians, Egyptians-Sudanese et al utilising crew amenities. I recall them coming into the toilets via the ports on one voyage through Suez & the deck boys locked the doors & set the fire hoses on them. They flew though the ports let me tell you. I must have had a key to my cabin just do not recall it, nor locking my cabin but must have? I certainly never fortunately had anything nicked & I used to travel with a tape recorder etc for music that would have for sure with my superb Zenith radio gone walkies.
An app I was with who when I went on deck, he was a Kiwi went free lance which was almost unheard of then a very bold move. He eventually wound up on Greeks when he got his ticket quickly got to command his own ship I recall as we stayed in reasonably regular communication until the end of the 70's.

I guess I was lucky after reading Ivan`s and John`s account of the years leading up to their Tickets.

I was on deck , Deck Boy to AB, getting paid overtime, for near 20 years, Then when I joined ESSO, they were short of Mates, so they paid my brother and I, full wages to go to College, all the College Fees and Examination fees, for all our Tickets to Master, So it cost nothing and without the exploitation of the life of a Cadet, Apprentice, Midshipman etc.
I did sail with one or two ex `Cadets`, who became ABs instead and later went to College at their own expense.
So maybe that was a better way of doing it.
Cheers
Brian.

Ivan have been with Chinese, Indian, Yugoslav, Cape Verde, West Indian, and you name it crews. When people question the validity and the so called goodness of sailing with such crews I always remind myself of the constant nightmares I used to have ( nearly as bad as Jims with his bag of Linen) and still do at times, as being in the situation with such at the recent documented disaster in 1988. Apart from the huge drawback of language associated with most foreign or alien crews, I certainly did not mind the Scottish accent as certainly knew who I had sailing with me, and am sure with an alien crew the outcome would have been very different. Cheers John Sabourn.