Fight on board

[John Arton]

With this result it must have been a pretty serious dust up.
https://gcaptain.com/bulk-carrier-be...Captain.com%29
rgds
JA

[Captain Kong]

Thanks for that John
In January this year I was just clearing Gatun Locks, shown far right on one photo of the new, and a COSCO Container ship was entering the new lock.
Maybe it was just a test?
They were still dredging the Channel to the locks at the Mira FRlores end.

Interesting
Cheers
Brian.

[j.sabourn]

Ref. to the dust up etc. Reminds me of the intellectuals course or seminar I did in a London Hotel, which I have mentioned before. One of the subjects was Melancholy and all these sophisticated people stood up and gave their views. One was on the decoration of crews cabins and positioning. Various dusky pastel colours such as pinks etc. was discussed by head doctors to keep feelings of violence and such like away. It was also suggested that the Chief Engineers cabin should be close to the engine room door. This was among many other things. That evening all sitting around the large dinner table I was asked to stand and say what I had learned that day. I said "If a seaman sat and stared at a bulkhead for 8 hours a day no matter what colour it was, I would consider that detrimental to his health, it would be better if he was given the opportunity of earning overtime by doing some ship maintainance, especially on long sea passages", it got no applause from the shipowners. A chief Engineer was then asked to say his bit he said" As far as I am concerned the further my cabin is away from the Engine Room door the better, and I would suggest the monkey island, I don't want to be woken up every 5 minutes with the door being opened and closed, the noise of the engine and the associated heat and smell of diesel oil". He got no applause either. It appears that all our hard work for a full week has come to nought and our only compensation was the free booze we managed to quaff. As regards the chief in the story shutting himself in the E.R. I would surmise there could have been various reasons for this 1. He was an alcoholic and nowadays being dry ships , it finally caught up with him and he was attempting to hide. 2. His alimony payments finally broke the camels back when he received notice of the fourth one. 3. He was nuts and had always been nuts, the others hadn't noticed because they were all in the same boat but at different levels. The dust up was caused because the cabins had been painted the wrong pastel colours, and caused much jealousy, especially by the one who got the pink cabin. JWS

[Gulliver]

I could never really understand why many cabins and communal areas in older ships were painted in Eau de Nil colour. I know that,allegedly,it was because it was a calm,soothing colour. Maybe,but it didn't do much to calm you if you were prone to shouting 'Hooey !' at your wash basin.

Difficult colour pink,John.Hard to find co-ordinating curtains and counterpanes,unless one had a particularly obliging 2nd steward,which thankfully most were.....

[j.sabourn]

There was a lot discussed at that seminar as said in a previous post re the wages paid on British ships was only slightly higher over the greeks They showed a mock up film of the mate and the second engineer having an argument in the bar, about water consumption on ship, each blaming the other about where it was going on the engine or people leaving taps running etc. I also brought my little bit in when asked to reply how I would handle. I said I took my whiskey straight so wasn't me using all the water. Its surprising how little sense of humour some people have, they take life far too seriously. What all these so called experts think they know about shipping, when half of them have never been to sea amazed me. Anyhow was and am too long in the tooth to be put off stride by would be experts, rather a bit like a lot of politicians all show and no knickers, their song should be Oh Yes I am the Great Pretender. Re the counterpanes on ships bunks they were all the same nearly for the 50 years I was at sea and probably a long time before. When taking the wife to hospital this year thought there was something familiar, it was exactly the same counterpanes they must now be in their dotage being at least 65 years old and going strong, don't think they will pull much in at auction though there are still too many. Cheers JWS

[j.sabourn]

#3... Eau-de-nil most ships had the weather deck heads painted this colour, I always thought it was because it didn't show the rust up so much and easier to keep apparently clean rather than being white and showing up the rust streaks more easier. Saguenay ships were mainly on the Bauxite run. Soogying the bulkheads only made them worse and one mixed the powdered bauxite with water and applied to the bulkheads with mops with a new coat of aluminium each time before arrival Montreal, usually on the River transit from Port Alfred and taken on their few passengers. All the outside works were silvereen, and the hulls green, near enough I suppose to that horrible Eau-de nil. Cheers JWS

[John Arton]

On a slightly different note, anyone see the news article about the W. Australian passenger thrown off a P & O cruise ship for chucking a stubbed out cigarette end over the side. My first thought was that's taking garbage management a bit to far but according to P & O it was because the cigarette could get blown back on board and start a fire. Apparently there have been a number of fires on cruise ships caused by wrongly disposed of cigarettes.
This guy was put ashore in Bali and had to make his own way home.
rgds
JA
p.s. Green is supposedly the most restful on the eyes colour and eau-de-nil is a shade of green. Nearly every ship I sailed on had the bridge wings painted that colour as apart from being restful on the eyes it was not reflective in the hot sun, unlike white.

[Ivan Cloherty]

JA
p.s. Green is supposedly the most restful on the eyes colour and eau-de-nil is a shade of green. Nearly every ship I sailed on had the bridge wings painted that colour as apart from being restful on the eyes it was not reflective in the hot sun, unlike white.

Was certainly a help on the bridge wings reducing reflection when taking sights and restful on the eyes on long tropical passages, and like all things shipboard, over ordering led to a surplus of this colour and it had to be used somewhere, first target was outside deckheads, again for reflection purposes, bulwarks were next and it spread sometimes to a whole ship and certainly looked cleaner for longer than white.

[Keith Tindell]

And yet i definitely recall the Bosun on one of my trips mixing a small amount of blue paint to the white gloss, he said to improve its whiteness, long before i ever heard of blue dhobi powder. I can see that white gloss could be a pain on the bridge, kt

[j.sabourn]

#9... Speaking from experience Keith the biggest pain I ever saw on the Bridge was one particular master, when I was 3rd. mate. A pumped up bully of a man with very little knowledge to my way of thinking at the time, who always insisted by night and by day the officer of the watch did his 4 hours on the wing of the bridge good weather and bad, and when ships fitted with Radar would never allow to be switched on. In later years heard he had the same as a lot of us to resort to offshore work, he went to West Africa, lasted 1 tour, couldn't handle a ship himself for all those years at sea was incompetent when it came to the push. Cheers JWS