6 on 6 off

[j.sabourn]

Think Albany was still a whaling station then also. Knew and sailed with father and son out here who brought a couple of trawlers out from Hull. Their names will come back when brain comes back to land after being in orbit for the last 7 weeks or so. Tried to get down to the docks from the Aberdeen museum, but the traffic and railings around the area weren’t designed for doddery old men. Saw the new harbour from the bus window. The days of the Tory Bar and the Waterloo Bar on Seaforth quay are long passed. At least the sun was shining. Regards JS
PS do you know what happened to Bill Clark the ch. Eng. out of Seaforth. Was from South Shields, he seemed to just disappear all of a sudden. Cheers JS.
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[j.sabourn]

It doesn’t matter Tony you were with Zapata. You will have been conversant with the old pelican hook then. Should have arm muscles like 8 inch hawsers. I heard different stories about Zapata, about the time you mention 100 pounds a day sticks in my mind for mate. Which was well above North Sea salary’s. Considering I was on 32 poundsa day as master on a stand by vessel in 1988.. Other companies were paying much less. This however only applied to those type of vessels. The regular supply boat companies were much more liberal with their salary’s. Cheers JWS

[happy daze john in oz]

I once lightened a 250,000 ton KOC tanker who had so few men they could not muster foe n aft moring parties simultaneously, cook was even running up the deck, apron flapping

Many ships now do not have the luxury of a cook, microwave food all DIY.

[John Arton]

As 2nd mate on product tankers, in port usually for no more than 48 hours, myself and the 3rd mate used a watch system that supposedly came from Australia, which meant that you were on overtime throughout, though how true that was I cannot say. It was Wake up of 5 hours on, 7 hours off, 12 on,12 off, then repeat. That worked well.
Then as master on small chemical tankers trading N.W. Europe I often found myself doing 72 hrs non stop, Dover straits in fog, river passage up to Antwerp, in port time taken up with getting/ port state inspections, annual surveys etc. Along with Superintendents visits, shore based maintenance outfits and even assisting in loading stores as well as doing crew changes, all this whilst loading or discharging 7 or 8 different chemicals at maybe up to 3 different berths. By the time we had finished the whole staff were whacked out to such an extent that on a number of occasions I actually refused to sail until we had had a break, the squels that came from marketing, who had the the ships budget calculated in hours, were horrendous but the technical side always backed me up. Then along came ISPS and Work/Rest hours regulations and my employers increased the crew level by 2, going from11 to13, giving us the capacity to have two seamen on deck at all times (cargo and gangway watch) along with an extra junior deck officer which meant the C/O was permanent day worker in port and at sea could be rotated into the watch system once tank cleaning was completed, with myself also doing bridge watches as and when necessary. The ships I was on had sufficient single cabin accommodation to carry 13 crew but I have seen many coastal vessels and feeder container ships that have been built with accommodation sufficient to only carry the absolute minimum crew allowed by legislation, which usually means 6 on 6 off for all on board and makes no allowance for in port working or sleep deprivation caused by the noise resulting from cargo operations.
Rgds
J.A.