Bp lng

[Lewis McColl]

OPhotos of the next generation from a BP site 168b519b8228dea120e83c699ed614b9.jpg

[Louis the fly]

I was once on a tanker safety course at Warsash in Southampton. There were a few BP mates and engineers on the course but their company name was listed as Dorchester. Did you ever come across this ?

[j.sabourn]

Louis what sort of tanker safety course.?? I did an Inert gas course just outside Southampton at a motel but that was mainly for superintendents and was them trying to sell their wares and lasted a week. In a previous post have said how reported to police a suspected terror threat. Maybe if hadn't reported, the few tiffs about an ex PM would not have been around too long after and he would not have raised the discussion in politics, as would have joined Louis Mountbatten, the boat Morning Cloud would have been damaged also. Cheers JWS...

[Louis the fly]

Hi John this was general safety. Fire prevention , the danger of rust causing fire , oil spills and pollution , venting tanks etc. Cannot remember much else. I was staying at the college and it had a bar so a lot of the instructors words passed me by. I did come out with a certificate saying I had successfully passed the course.

[j.sabourn]

Have you ever counted up all these certificates one got at sea Louis? Anyone would think one spent all the time acquiring. All those people and companies making money out of the poor old seamen. Today there are even more. Some of these compulsory courses are also very expensive. Don't think anyone could afford to pay them themselves. Suppose keeps people other than seamen employed which am not against, but am when they get payed more than the people actually doing the job in real. Cheers JWS

[Louis the fly]

For most of my seagoing life I was happy being a run of the mill AB , no responsibilities although I did take the occasional Bosuns job. Then life changed a lifeboat and ABs ticket were no longer enough , I was sent on numerous courses
Sea survival , fire fighting , first aid , life rafts , radar and navigation , fast rescue boats , evacuation and the tanker safety course. Nearly forgot , operating a cherry
picker and driving a tugmaster.I was very glad to avoid being classed as a general
purpose 1 where you worked in the engine room and on deck.

[j.sabourn]

Don't think many of the older seafarers did either Louis. They went to sea either on deck in the E.R or in catering, then later the touch lines were changed and were told they were doing all 3. Was an imposition to many of them. The ones who lost out the most were the catering, and apart from the passenger liner trade is almost non existent today. The one thing the British flag had going for it was had to have a Cook. Out here you had a cook only if you had more than 12 on board. Dont know what the British regs are today, but if the same as is supposed to be there will be no cook on a lot of vessels. Your GPS are called IRS here. Integrated ratings, the new work force will never know any difference between then and now. Cheers JWS

[j.sabourn]

Ref. To Cooks and galleys makes one wonder what shipowners base their costing on when deciding on what nationalitys they employ. Sailed on one ship had 3 cooks and 3 galleys On board. She was Chinese crew, mixture of mates and engineers , so had to have European style food, the ER. And deck were from 2 different parts of China one from the Shanghai area and one from Kowloon or somewhere, so apart from different food types they spoke different dialects and if both parties didn't speak mandarin had to use their hands. I was with two totally. Different ships and two totally different companys but had the same Bosun and third mate it was like I was being shadowed. It was good for me though as the Bosun spoke absolutely no English and as the 3 mate spoke a smattering used to use him as the go between. However apart from watchkeeping the 3 mate had no idea how to use a sextant so used to do all that for him, he used to relieve me a good 45 minutes before the end of my watch and there was always a few cold beers waiting there. Apart from there being no 2nd mate And the master being a no hoper and the ship on its last legs, would have been not too bad a life style. Cheers JWS

[Lewis McColl]

#2 Louis Ref: Dorchester, BP used a manning agency based in the IOM called Dorchester maritime Services. They then moved the manning again offshore to Singapore and it became BP Maritime services. Funny this just coincided at the same time as BP reflagged the whole fleet into the British register IOM flag. The reason being they now qualified for tonnage tax?? from the UK government (bear in mind that BP is now a golbally owned company)
Now why move the manning arrangements from the IOM? Well because the vessels were now IOM flag it meant that the sea staff would now have to pay full Class 1 national insurance contributions. Nothing wrong with that I say (if you were foreign flag you did not have to pay a class 1 stamp, you could keep your state pension entitlement up to date by paying a Class2? self employed stamp.) BP moved the manning to Singapore so they could avoid paying the employers portion of the Class 1 contribution. My NIC's went from £450 a year(approx) to just under £5000 a year. There are many sea staff on BP ships today who have just ignored paying class 1 NIC's and burried their heads in the sand. I had an email a while back from an oldman I sailed with in BP, he has just retired and is nearly suicidal, he has had a demand for non payment of Class 1 NIC's for the last 14 years I think he said, they are demanding £ 70,000.Last contact I had from him he lives in Spain.

[Bengy Roberts]

had some fun with BP