Williamson Turn

[Phil Hughes]

Can any of you deckies remember performing a "Williamson Turn" during boat drills at sea? I spent 6 years deep-sea with the remainder of my time on the ferries and in my time deep-sea I did it twice but until that time I had never heard of such a manouvour. This manouvour worked a treat as we completed it to recover the bag dropped.
Phil Hughes.

[Captain Kong]

I have done it many times with VLCCs
It is an accurate way to find someone who has gone over the wall.,
if it has just happened, he has gone over the Port side,, hard a port the wheel. to move the props away from him. take the head 45 degrees from the[ eg. steering co.270 to 225,] course and then hard a starboard and bring her round to the reciprocal course. [eg. 090] steady as she goes . and slow down ready to recover.

[Doc Vernon]

Keep to Topic please no Politics !!! Or Else!

[happy daze john in oz]

Was the general rules about persons over the side that the ship had to turn and sail for two hours in the direction it came from?
Do recall one such turn around on a UCL but cannot recall how long for, never found the missing person though.

But little point if the call to say some one is missing is several hours after the event..

[j.sabourn]

Never heard of any time stipulation ? Like most things outside the scope of people ashore making decisions for others , seafarers had to make their own decisions using their brain and what experience they had on board , they were a self surviving community , and I can’t imagine any self respecting seaman taking wrong advice from a landlubber knowing it was bad advice to boot. It has appeared for that to happen in recent years especially on passenger ship calamity’s , and it certainly makes me cringe , mainly in disgust. JS.

[j.sabourn]

#4...There used to be a standing joke on most trampships that the mate would insist on anyone falling over the side to take a paint brush with him and do a bit of touching up on his way down. JS

[Ivan Cloherty]

A shout from above 'Cadets get your shirts on, I will not have my officers walking about half naked' Sounds reasonable doesn't it, however at the time we were on stages overside painting with black bitumastic, he were a strange Master that one with some of the things he did. This bitumastic had a trade name, anyone remember what it was (I can't). Reason most of us were half naked when using it was because you'd never get it off your clothes and we used to rub ourselves down with linseed oil prior using it, as it stuck to the skin. OK JS I know what you're going to say, I should have gone to my wardrobe under the foc'le head, but this guy wanted us to put our white shirts on, but we all went to the foc'le wardrobe.

Just to keep on track (pardon the pun) never had occasion to use the Williamson Turn, but have on occasions taken a 'round turn out of her' when OOW in the Sea of Japan to alleviate a close situation.

[j.sabourn]

Whats a white shirt. ? On the few extreme cases I went into the saloon second sittings of course for apprentices, reason so we wouldnt disclose the conversation to those mortals barred entry , shows the intellect when the stewards hadnt taken any vow of secrecy, anyhow I used to resort to white plastic or paper collars to heck with the rest of the shirt, fresh water didnt grow on trees you know. Number 3 hatch right outside the pantry door made a salubrious dining table, and nobody seemed to mind if a bit of bitumastic paint fell on the tarpaulin , the top tarp was always the oldest one with the most patches in any case. The trouble with taken a turn out of her to alleviate someone else not knowing the rule of the road was that sometimes you finished
up putting the two half hitches in as well as totally different vessels then got involved. The one causing all the problems just sailed serenely on probably a perfect happy idiot. JS

PS Believe me you do get them at sea. Some of the ships I brought down from Singapore to work on the coast out here, most were fitted with an alarm on the Bridge that if the watchkeeper did not push at regular intervals an alarm used to ring on my bunkside table alerting me to the fact that the watchkeeper was more than likely asleep. However as I used to go up with usually a total Australian crew to bring them down , the only time saw used was when I tested it when taking the ship back at some later date. JS

[Denis O'Shea]

#4. We lost the 2nd eng overboard was last sighted at 0345 by bridge watchkeeper changing watch he was leaning on the handrail having a smoke, was not missed until 0900 after a search of the ship, I sent out the XXX man overboard msg to all ships in area to keep sharp lookout, we turned around and back tracked to last known posn and found him his boiler suit had filled with air and formed a sail keeping his body afloat, we continued to Lagos where he was taken ashore and we attended his funeral as he was buried in Lagos. Rgds Den

[j.sabourn]

I am going to repeat a story on site which was proved wrong by someone producing a newspaper account of the incident which differs. I will repeat my version whether right or wrong is immaterial as is what I remember whether right or wrong. Apprentices name was Tarbut as far as I can remember newspaper is different , and coming out of Cairns again different to media who said Brisbane or somewhere.I was 2 mate and the apprentice was farmer on the same middle watch.He was missing at the end of the watch and I called the master, and the Barrier Reei pilot who would later disembark at Thursday Island. Ship was turned round and course was retraced back as far as Cairns . A boat was launched at various reefs to see if he was there .Just outside Cairns is the Grafton passage which has an unmanned light on and for some reason we did not search this reef just blew the ships whistle.as was daylight by this time.. The usual radio traffic was put out and we recontinued our passage home.Later the same apprentice was found alive and well on the reef at the Grafton passage, he must have hidden in the long grass when we were there . There were all sorts of repercussions from this incident when the ship arrived Liverpool and is another story in itself and is also on this site on another theme. But apart from ali The waffle , it is my belief that the app.jumped and swam to the beacon on passing , this was substantiated when on his following ship he jumped in Australia taking the ships best silver to set up house with his paramour in Australia. The first jump was doing it the hard way , for others also apart from himself. JS