sea fog

Brian, yes I often would get quite overly imaginative as to what would happen if we had a head on to me on the forecastle when in thick fog. Must say I had visions of the Andrea Doria & that passenger that wound up on the other ship in someone's cabin. BSL were certainly not into modern gizmos, how many even had iron mike? Very few even in the mid to late 60's. I remember the beaver boats well Beaver Ash anyway when I went on the wheel first time going down the Thames in fog. There was no wheel just two I think little joy sticks & when you were given a course change you had to remember to ensure that you hit the say port joy stick to stop the rudder or she would go hard over. If told 20 degrees of starboard rudder you had to watch the rudder indicator & ensure you took helm off say at 15 let her coast to 20. I feel she was very agile too from memory? A few times that first watch, 12-4 my personal favourite I did forget causing one or two caustic comments. I reckon we should have been shown-introduced to that system before we sailed or at least the watch & it was night as I recall. Still a beautiful little ship.

Leratty
Sailed on the Beaverfir which was very similar to the Ash, though she was always noted as the best of the Beavers (no comments regarding ladies parts please).
The Fir had a similar system and as recall the operating levers were actually behind the helmsman, but could be wrong. She was a bersterd in bad weather to maintain any sort of correct heading, the trick was to let her wander off 10 deg or more in bad weather and use minimum helm to bring her back whilst clinging on feeling ever so slightly green
rgds
JA

John, yes you are correct as to hard to keep on course in a heavy sea. I remember that if we put say the starboard leaver on you had to remember to hit it again as it got to say 10 degrees of rudder or she would just keep going hard over a trap for young players. On the Ash one of our guys got into huge dodo over rounding a gas light buoy other side of Toronto. He took the helm instruction from the 2nd to round the buoy shortly thereafter he thought she was going to be too close to the buoy so bravely said so to be severely reprimanded then she hit the buoy a glancing blow it exploded up the accommodation leaving a large black singe mark. Anyway helmsman got the bollocking rather than the 2nd which was considered poor form. I recall the little paddles or leavers were in front of you below the gyro on a sort of little panel? The Ash was a great little ship but boy we had some incidents wound up calling her Beaver Crash. I have mentioned a couple of them before, one in Chicago was a true beauty, we were berthing half light ship when they went astern too hard she kicked her stern up it landed on the wharf & belted a a large bollard out of the wharf which bounced down the wharf like a ping pong ball chasing a huge American Negro docker who was running faster than Usan Bolt. We could not stop laughing though of course not funny.

Leratty
As usual we are going off thread slightly but heyho that's what it is all about.
Remember going up the seaway on the Fir almost light ship, just around 100 tons of cargo in No1 tween deck. On approaching the tie up wall for the first American lock, bit of a foul up and we ended up belting the wall very hard and puncturing the hull in the exact same position as the cargo was. Put down the gangway to inspect the damage and the next thing we were surrounded by American cops with guns drawn demanding we got back on board tout suite, we did. Hours of arguments and we were eventually allowed onto the wall under armed guard to inspect the damage. We had to shift some of the cargo in order to access the damage from inside, built a cement box around it and after it had been inspected the Coastguard allowed us to proceed under tug escort. Problem was the only tug available was in standby mode and had been shut down. After a few hours its crew could be seen staggering on board and some time later huge plumes of smoke could be seen coming from its stack and it eventually made its way across to us. A nightmare passage through the rest of the locks ensued with a tug escort made fast to us full of nizzed crew members. Pilot and Captain (Bob Cummings) tearing their hair out at the antics of the tug.
Did you ever come across a cadet on the Ash who was an avid golfer? Saw him in the late 60's on the telly leading a golf tournament after he gave up seafaring to become a professional golfer, or the 2nd Mate off the Ash who one day tripped over nissed and getting up calmly blamed the match stick some had dropped for tripping him up, he went on to make Master if I recall despite his prodigious capacity for the Ale.
The Beavers were the best ships I ever sailed on with some great sailors and some real character's. The chippy on the Elm who as she was entering the American lock with the big viewing platform going up the seaway, jumped on the after Capstan, dropped his kecks and posed like EROS in Piccadilly circus whilst the boys turned the capstan, much to the horror of all the families watching from the grandstand.
The Bosun on the Fir, John? used to kip with the ships cat curled round his head which always used to give me a shock when I used to give him a call in the morning as it just looked like he had a female companion in bed with him.
WE had an East End crew who used to drag me ashore in London every time and pour rum and coke down my throat (did not protest too much) who also taught me all my seamanship skills of wire splicing, rigging of stages, serving etc. etc.
Some really great characters on all the Beavers who beyond being great fun to sail with all had great seamanship qualities and boy could they down the ale. Pretty sure you could navigate from London to Montreal or St. Johns just by following the magnetic trail of empty ale cans tossed overboard.
rgds
JA

how can any young ones now learn from the old time crews......do they even see each other ....most of the things I ever learned were shown by old hands

Throughout my time at sea, out of all the weather conditions one was liable to get, Fog was the worst condition that I considered possible. No doubt there will be many others who have the same reserves about this weather condition. Even with all the modern aids such as Radar I still never felt that I had full confidence in such. Have even switched off in certain areas in clear visibility when targets exceeded over 100 in certain areas and preferred to go on the rule of the road and treat each situation as it arose. In fog of course to do this would be defeating all the purposes of the machine as an aid to navigation so was always kept on. It always amazed me how some people interpreted the rules, a 20 knot ship would reduce to half speed the same as a 10 knot ship would reduce to say half speed 5 knots. Although think the rules are now worded differently. In real bad weather storms and such I never felt the anxiety as did in fog as usually had faith in what your ship was capable of, I still consider fog a seamans worse nightmare with or without all the modern aids. Cheers John Sabourn

John S
Like you I always felt fog was your worst enemy. My way of treating it was to think along the lines of an airline pilot who regularly put their craft in the hands of instrumentation when landing.
So reduce to a safe speed (look at your stopping distances on your manoeuvring data), ensure your radar is tuned properly, make sure your lookout is included in all of this and pray that the other ships are doing the same.
Modern radars and ECDIS if properly used should reduce chances of collision or brown trouser incidents down to a minimum but we all know you will never be able to eliminate human error.
rgds
JA

Remember about 1973 as 3rd.Mate on a Townsend ferry Felixstowe to Rotterdam in thick fog we always arrived at Rotterdam on time. The first we saw of the dock was when told to throw the heaving lines. Excellent VTS
and Radar coverage.

Some difference to US Gulf ports where with the first wisps of fog the ports are closed by the USCG.

many years ago I took my 33 ft trawler yatch(Cygnus) from North wales to Fuengirola southern Spain.All want well after fueling up at Newlyn and heading for Finesterre.(In those days electronic navigation was Decca which we lost halfway across the bay although we picked it up again down the Spanish coast for a while)but off finisterre the radar went off and then we hit fog.And it was night so we couldn't pick up any lights
Our navigator was good and he managed to get us to an anchorage outside Bayonne where we needed to call in for fuel and we anchored until daylight .
At daylight it was still fog but he reckoned he could get us into Bayonne using the echo sounder.
This was ok until the fog cleared slightly and I could see a row of breakers ahead and my bottle went.Fortunately in the process of clearing slightly it showed us a Spanish fishing smack(one man and a rod and outboard.We managed to get him over and with hand signals got the message across that we wanted him to guide us into port.He did and when we got into Bayonne (we were only about a kilometre away) the sea fog cleared and the port was sunny.
I was so relieved that I gave him a bung thinking that was a tenner well spent and it wasn't until I was at the fuel berth paying for 500 gallons of fuel that I realised that as I was not really familiar with pesetas I had given him 100 pounds.
Didn't he have a good day.
john sutton

John Sutton
Bayonne was a pretty regular call for me on chemi tankers.
The first time I went there there was a tremendous ground swell with some very steep swells running across the entrance which made for a very hairy entrance.
After any sort of storm in the Bay of Biscay, Bayonne suffers from swell setting in.
Our berth used to be about half a mile in from the breakwaters and could be a nightmare with the ground swell causing us to range up and down.
One time it was so bad we had to get tugs to assist us off the berth and re-moor further up river where the swell was not evident.
On a good day it was a great run ashore. Used to take a nice long walk into town for some really good French cooking and wine but there was also a couple of decent bars within a short distance from the berth. In summer the beach was a treat with stunners in bikinis (bottom half only) wandering around. Made supping a cold beer at the beach bar very difficult without spilling.
The other memorable thing I remember is the number and size of the rats running around the grain elevators.
One of my favourite Froggie ports despite the problems with ground swell.
rgds
JA