The infamous KG5 Seaman London Docks.

[j.sabourn]

The only memories I have of a dock Street crowd was in Rotterdam in 1972 , where the whole crowd apart from the 2nd, engineer and self were left. this was on return from Dakar where the Master had been stabbed. The crowd they sent had a few misfits there as must use a ships reputation to clear their books of those they wanted rid of. The first night on board I picked up one unconscious lying at the foot of ladders into the accomodation and managed to get him into his bunk when he came to he proudly showed me the scars on his wrist where he had previously tried to commit hari kari. He also suffered from epileptic fits , so he was sent back to London , how he ever got passed by a doctor will never know. The person who posted sometime ago about his worse Xmas at sea , I often wondered if he was among that crowd . They had a murder off the coast of Chile, fortuanetley i wasnt there by then. The ship was the Rosewood . And was there again when she was sold to the Greeks in Genoa , or was it Savona , one of the two. There in lies another story better maybe untold. JS

[j.sabourn]

#10 Would probably be changed to when I was on the Kiwi coast for a very short time Des in 1974 on a products carrier carrying petroleum to all the ports south of Whangerai where the Oil installation was , we were only allowed 3 months on the coast as was a British registered ship the Laurelwood , on the coast at that time was also a greek ship with the same limitations imposed on her. Plus another Kiwi ship with no limitations. The best conditions though were obviously the Kiwi ship who were on 2 on and 3 off . Can you imagine a British ship getting such ? we were on Sundays at sea and think it was then 5 weeks off per year. Used to go up to Newcastle NSW for tank cleaning and lay along side some Dolphins in the river ( not the swimming type ). Were allowed back on the coast again as had a break at the 3 months condition, I never went back as had flown down from the Middle East from another tanker and had !2 months in by this time. I think the conditions were even better than the Ozzie offshore which I was on from 1991 to 2002. Cheers JS