Ship building

[John Arton]

Appledore shipyard in Devon is to close, it was possibly the last yard that could build completely under cover. Another nail in the U.K. commercial ship building capacity.
Vernon's recent quiz showing a tug, solved by yours truly, brought back some memories of my voyages up the Elbe to load.
Just before you reached the huge Airbus factory , off to stbd. Was a small shipyard that always seemed to have 2 or 3 small feeder container ships fitting out. The hulls were built in Poland and then brought round to this yard where the accommodation and machinery were installed. The reason for building the hulls in Poland but completing them in German yards, I was told, that by doing it this way was to circumnavigate E.U. rules on subsidies on ship building whereby the yard could give a bigger discount to the ship owner ( which the German government would reimburse the yard for), by claiming they were outfitting ships but not building them.
From what I recall, E.U. subsidies to ship yards was set at a maximum of 10%, though I could most likely be wrong.
This was when I was still sailing up until 2008.
Made me wonder how come U.K. yards could not employ the same tactics, then I remembered that back in the 1990' s the E.U. demanded that we reduce our commercial ship building capacity by a fairly large percentage. So the yards on the wear that could have built those vessels under cover had been the victim of those cuts demanded by the E.U.
So again it appears that there is one rule for us whilst the rest can do as they wish.
Rgds
J.A.

[robpage]

We as British do not have a clue how to play Europe , the game ,we follow the rules blindly . Classic of the food industry 20 years ago , abattoir in a grade ll listed building , could not get floor to ceiling minimum clearance by 50mm was told by the council relocate or close , so 15 men faced redundancy he could not afford to relocate , so he took the council officer to an abattoir in Normandy 300 mm below minimum , they operated with a special derogation , an EU way around the rules , the Norfolk officer had never heard of it , we like to obey ,

[vic mcclymont]

That is the biggest problem with the EU blatant disregard for the rules by certain countries with no fear of punishment. Others following rules, make a mistake, fined.
Vic

[Tony Taylor]

Since the mad cow episode, we have had the highest standard slaughter houses of Europe, yet I have seen meat from Germany still with spinal cord present.
All stock must be slaughtered in licensed abattoirs, but you go anywhere in Europe and farmers can home slaughter with impunity.
I saw a documentary some time ago where Spanish officials blatantly ignored under size fish being landed.
Mrs Thatcher, took £25m from Europe in exchange for a promise not to build any ships on the Wear for 25 years, her excuse- there is no market for them whilst at the same time there were 26 yards in Germany working and being subsidised by their government.
Austin and Pickersgill had the first building hall in Europe and were prefabbing before anyone else.
A total sell out in my opinion.

[vic mcclymont]

A.P. wasnformed in 1954. Lithgow's of Port Glasgow were building prefabricated ships since 1947.
Vic

[Ken Norton]

Working for my last company I had to go over to Antwerp, upon arrival checked in and went into the bar for a beer. While at the bar I smelt tobacco burning, asking the barman if smoking was permitted he assured me that it was in the designated area, which he pointed out. Upon telling him that we were not allowed to do this in the U.K. as we had been told by our government that it was a E.U. Directive ruling, the reply from him was this "we do what we like here it is ruled by what the business believes that the customer requires".

[Lewis McColl]

Working for my last company I had to go over to Antwerp, upon arrival checked in and went into the bar for a beer. While at the bar I smelt tobacco burning, asking the barman if smoking was permitted he assured me that it was in the designated area, which he pointed out. Upon telling him that we were not allowed to do this in the U.K. as we had been told by our government that it was a E.U. Directive ruling, the reply from him was this "we do what we like here it is ruled by what the business believes that the customer requires".

And you could have insisted that the law regarding smoking in a public place is not being adhered to. You may have been told if you don't like it leave!!! Return with the police and the licensee will be held to account for not enforcing the EU law.

[Ken Norton]

Yes point taken Lewis, however it is something that has never bothered me as long as it is not directly in close proximity. The reason I raised the post being the surprise of their interpretation of the directive, they were also a hotel of International status.

[robpage]

The new Athens airport not the old glifada one the snack bars had a central kitchen one side of the Snack Bar was open to the airport the other was surrounded by glass walls . This indoor greenhouse had the windows to the outside open and had a sign in Greek that said the airport management had officially designated this and close area as the outside and as it was outside smoking with permitted in that area if you wish to a taken the advice and gone for the policeman to complain it would have been quite handy because there was about 10 of them in there , this is where we have made the mistake with Europe all the way through you can do this to an area by applying a special derogation which isn't an easy thing to do but it is doable with cooperation from the local authority all the EU statute are surmountable if you know the way around them and how to apply that particular way

[Keith Tindell]

Taxi drivers in Greece take it as personnel insult if you put the seatbelt on, scooters frequently seen not wearing crash helmets in Greece. Its pointless making rules unless you can enforce them, kt