aye and he would want change back as well.....cappy
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Talking about "why ships crash". I was on a ship doing the rounds of Borneo and some very out-of-the-way places I never even heard of before, nor since.
Several deck hands had scarpered in some place or other, and I was promoted from deck boy to JOS, just to make up the watchkeepers. I was on the wheel being told where to go by a little eastern type pilot that seemed to be living on board for a while. As we were approaching the mouth of a little river, he told me to go to port, I knew that was where the river bank was just by looking it it. I didn't argue, but hesitated until he turned and shouted to turn to port. I opened my mouth to say we might hit the bank, but he just ranted, telling me to do as he says. suddenly everything was flying and the mate fell off his chair, we were firmly aground.
The captain came into the wheelhouse with the chief shouting and hollering at the pilot. He told them I had gone the wrong way to his orders and therefore my fault. I thought they would hang me, but the, second I think, told them he'd written everything down, even the bit's where the pilot had had a go at me. I heard no more about it, but we sat on the bank for several days waiting for a tug.
This pilot stayed on board though and nothing was done about it. The other deckies told me they thought we were going somewhere, or doing something we weren't supposed to be.
Some of those places in Borneo were just us at anchor in the middle of the jungle, and nothing else, but the odd big canoe bringing stuff to load.
Did anyone else on here go to these unnamed places in Borneo? I can remember some of the place names, but they seemed to be sort of villages or towns.
I spent several weeks as C/E on the ‘Sraights Star’ sailing around the North Borneo coast with no problems except being signalled by a small vessel which appeared to be in some distress. We were worried about pirates but the skipper and I had a chat and decided that the proper reaction was to honour the time honoured tradition which was to go and help a fellow seafarer. It turned out that they were short of fresh water, which we supplied and the crew were happy to get some salt dried fish in return. Later I worked as S/Eng for an offshore supply ship company and had a lovely relationship with the local crews who worked for us.
George Hepworth
I spent almost a year (2012) on a drillship drilling offshore East coast of Borneo and used to crew change through Balikpapan every 28 days, half of the crew on board were locals had great time nice people to work with. Long crew change though Balikpapan- Singapore-Amsterdam-Glasgow. We used to swop jerry cans of diesel for fresh tuna with the local fishermen.
There we were coming into Las Palmas all looking good.
Then apparently the pilot told the helmsman to make a certain manouver which he did.
Next thing all on board knew was the bang when the ship hit the quay.
No one knew what had happened but there was a nasty dent in the bow of the Windsor and a big chunk of quay missing.
Still managed to get some smokes for a silver salver and ashore for a beer or two.
Nothing unusual about asking the 2/E about navigational matters. Don't forget, it's the bbc.